My Heart in You
by Yamiyugikun
Summary: Ch 12 up. Yay! Updated finally. Luke comes to regret what he's done and how much he's hurt Jade by trying to save the people of St. Binah. LukeJade yaoi, more shonen-ai, teen for sexuality and language.
1. Chapter 1

My first Tales of the Abyss fic. I absolutely love and adore Jade, and him even more with Luke. So this is from Jade's point of view. Jade and romance hardly mix so this was really difficult. Hopefully it's not to OCC, but he seems to be a complex character and I analyzed him as best I could. The next chapter will probably be from Luke's point of view.

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Jade's POV

People always see me smile. Perhaps they conceive I fancy life to be pure joy in every moment of the journey. Others I first meet attribute my smile to an officer's sense of decorum. Call it what you will, but a smile plastered on one's face works wonders—because people never know what exactly you're thinking behind that subtle curl of lips. I call it my magic smile, or "Jade smile." "How wonderful you all are getting along," or "I see how lovely the weather is," I say to this pleasant entourage I travel with—Anise, Tear, Natalia, Guy, and…oh, did I ever mention his ever mature, responsible and charming master? The moment we met at Engave in the incident, in which the villagers accused him of pilfering their storehouse, when it was in fact the Cheagles, my smile worked its magic on him, that lovable Luke I adore.

"Who the hell was that jerk?" Luke complained to Tear at Engeve, I happened to hear eavesdropping outside in my investigation of the Dark Wings. "Well, I thought he was civil for a military officer addressing civilians," Tear replied back, referring to me, and that's when I knew the game started between Luke and I.

To be honest I never liked him when we met, nor did I'd ever imagine I would, but this story is how one simple meeting cold as the land I come from blanketed in snow, evolved into something deeper. It started after I arrested him for entering Malkuth territory on board the Tartarus. I requested his assistance in preventing war with Kimlasca, when the six God-generals attacked, locked us up, left us defenseless without our weapons, that we planned to retake the ship our first conversation ensured.

"How can you take human life?" Luke cried, watching me thrust my spear through an Oracle Knight in a fight on the deck.

The sense of horror at the knight's blood splattering, his final dry cry all sent waves of shock through Luke, leaving the poor boy mortified. In my childhood I once found watching helpless monsters die enjoyable in a twisted inhuman way. After all, with my genius I could revive them by extracting their data, using the right chemicals in a lab to create a perfect copy through fomicry. Because of that, my sister called me a devil and rightly so. Of course, it was only after meeting a healer and Seventh Fonist, Professor Nibilim, my eyes were opened my eyes to the preciousness that life truly holds.

"Don't you feel anything when you take that monster's life?" Nebilim asked after we met. That was the same question Luke asked in the Tartarus that reminded me of her and just how heartless my old self used to be.

"Why am I supposed to feel?" I had asked Nebilim in response. "After all, a perfect copy can be created with the same fonic signature given the right technology and materials."

To Luke's question when he asked how I could take human life aboard the Tartarus I said, "I am a soldier," without regret, at least on the surface at that time. "A soldier understands and accepts that if he takes an enemy's life in protecting his country, it's part of his duty, likewise he's prepared to give his own life if an enemy were to kill him."

"I don't care much for you military types, it's just an excuse for being a professional killer!" Luke cried, blinking to hold back tears over the bloodied, stiff motionless body of the Oracle Knight once living moments ago. "That's what you are."

"Indeed I am," I replied honestly, keeping my cool.

Tear, in her compassion, did her best to explain the indifference soldiers assume from that of civilians in the loss towards human life. It was a sin that trained soldiers like myself bore, indeed 'killers' as Luke termed us. I think at that time my perceived indifference caused Luke pain deep down inside. I really wanted to apologize then, reach out and say, "Everything will be okay," but instead I simply said, "If you wish not to fight then remain in the back of our formation," as I usually would sounding callous in Luke's ears.

"You think I can come up with an excuse like you and take human life?" Luke yelled at me and ran ahead to the bridge.

Luke was too young then in our journey to know the meaning of the sin one bears when taking another's life. It was only after the tragedy at Akzeriuth in which Master Van unleashed Luke's hypersonic-resonance, taking tens of thousands of lives that Luke began to understand sin of taking life and the pangs of guilt that follow. Before that Luke felt misunderstood, alienated, isolated, that's why he believed everything Van said, "That you will be a hero by destroying the miasma with your power." Maybe it was my fault then I didn't reach out to Luke before that, apologize to him so he'd know he wasn't alone, instead of turning to Van and ending up the victim of his deceit.

But it was true back then he was arrogant, naïve, conceited, anything I would of said was futile. It's like calling out to someone without the ears to hear, or telling someone with their eyes closed that the light exists; it's real in front of your eyes even if you can't see it physically. But little by little some conscience awoke inside him, giving him the ears to hear, the eyes to see, the heart to feel from the guilt he suffered over Akzeriuth. I saw it in him after we abandoned him in Yulia City, heading with Asch back to the Outer Lands to investigate Van's intentions. I wondered if forsaking him in his darkest hour of need, when his soul cried out in pain over he guilt he suffered over Akzeriuth made him hate me even more.

For all Luke's idiocy he suffered deeply. He was a replica, the copy of another not a person in the truest sense of having his own self and purpose. After all, Van created him to be a weapon. Did he even have his own soul and reason to exist? If I never created fomicry, he wouldn't of been created and endured so much pain. I started to ponder those questions feeling sympathy for Luke when we met at Aramis Spring. Guy had left our group to wait for Luke there to return to the Outer Lands. I needed Guy's help in rescuing Natalia and Ion from Grand Maestro Mohs, so it wasn't by choice I ran into Luke again.

The moment Luke stepped out of the cave at Aramis Spring into the sunlight, I saw regret tinge his emerald eyes with deep dark shades of pain, emotion writhing beneath wishing he might give his own life to bring those back to life at Akzeriuth that died because of him. I understood his pain of wanting to bring back the dead. After all, Professor Nebilim, the one who had awakened my humanity, died because of me. When I tried to revive her through fomicry, her replica became a violent monster, I felt was the symbol of my sin. In Luke's eyes when we met, I saw own self-reflected back, asking me why I had behaved coldly to this boy who wanted my friendship.

"Jade, it's you!" he called out, smiling for a moment, then scowling at how I treated him aboard the Tartarus after Akzeriuth.

"Oh, Luke, I was searching for Guy, I had no intention of meeting you," I began nonchalantly. No, I wouldn't let him see my feelings, my sympathy; I couldn't forgive him for killing those people at Akzeriuth, for being so stupid and human like me.

"Listen, I know you don't like me cause of how I used to be…" Luke sniffled, trailing off into silence drowned by the sounds of running water, birds chirping, leaves rustling in the trees overhead of this beautiful wild valley. "But please, let me show I can change, I will change. It's why I did this," he implored, blinking hard to fight back his tears, running his hands through his fiery shoulder length hair, shaggy, recently cut. In cutting his hair he symbolized the throwing away of his old, childish self.

"I like it, it looks…nice," I admitted rather awkwardly, stifled, allowing my feelings to betray me. I cursed myself because I am cold, rational, and frigid like snow. If only Guy came, we could be off on our merry way. But fate has a cruel way of teasing me, torturing me how I do others.

He looked at me, stunned, then laughed, his voice clear like the peal of bells, a child's happy laugh from his old innocent days at his manor. "You think so?" he asked, smiling sadly, face still choked with pain in his reddened, watery eyes.

"Yes, otherwise I wouldn't of said so," I remarked obviously, pushing my glasses back up the bridge of my nose as I rolled my eyes, sighing, wishing in god's name I never said such a thing. This is why I keep people at a distance to avoid trouble, but somehow Luke's managed to penetrate my defenses catching me off guard.

He noticed my low sudden tone laced with irritation, rubbing his teary eyes. Stepping forward, he dropped his gaze apologizing in a way I never deemed possible in the very start of our journey. "Jade, if I made you uncomfortable, I'm sorry. I've done so many things I should apologize for." His cadence became soft, steady, a young man speaking with a newfound maturity birthed from his pain at Akzeriuth. "Including how when we first met, I didn't fight aboard the Tartarus. I was a burden then, and I know I'm one now, because you said you had no intention of meeting me, coming here for Guy's help instead."

Underneath Luke's maturity I felt his deep-seated need— the need to be wanted, to be accepted, but greatest of all to be needed back by me. By opening his heart, revealing himself to me, he wanted me to do the same. But I do not reach out to others emotionally the way he does and say, "I love you" in close embrace. I've never loved another romantically, because it's not in my nature just as snow is frigid. I experimented sexually with Peony back in my youth, during my school days as many teens do when Nebilim was alive.

_Jade, tell me if this feels good_, Peony asked, brushing his hand over me when we were young.

_Oh, it does right down here, but my pants, they feel tight_, I said back, discovering erections, orgasms in the sexual exploration in my younger days.

But experimenting like that and actually being in love are two different things. Romantic love is irrational, illogical, and incompatible with my nature. Luke, on the other hand, spurred by his emotions without an ounce of logic would embrace it altogether. But although he's matured mentally, I fear he may confuse love and sex altogether. Although 17 in age, he's really 7 having lived that long as a replica making his heart young like a child's.

"You're teasing me, huh, Jade, when you say you like my hair." Luke crossed his arms, frowning. "Or you're still mad at me like everyone else cause I'm an idiot," he hissed, closing the distance between us.

"Luke, I'm not mad," I began, allowing a small smile to tug at the corners of my lips, a real one behind my soft disarming one I use keeping people at a distance. I let the warmth of my closely guarded heart I try so hard to hide, melt in the touch I placed on his shoulder through my dark gloved hand.

My feather light touch sent shivers through and a blush crossing his face. I'll admit I was cruel with my crushing sarcasm the time we first met. But just as a caterpillar sleeps growing into a butterfly, shrouded in its cocoon, so too did Luke awaken in Yulia City a different person after Akzeriuth's destruction.

_I want to change, I will change_, Luke pleaded with all his heart, gazing up into my narrow crimson eyes. _So please, Jade, give me a chance._

"You must understand change takes time. It's hard to regain the trust of those you hurt," I explained, running my hand up his neck along his jaw. Yes, the least I could do to make up for the pain I caused him was to teach him about things he didn't understand like sexuality.

He gasped, his emerald eyes going wide under his fiery bangs, drawn closer to me by a fluttering in his heart. "Tear said the same thing," he sniffled, burying his head in my chest, still racked by the trauma of destroying so many lives. He felt he existed, as a weapon in the scheme of Van's plans, to take life and bring heartache in the hopes Yulia's Score will bring prosperity after all that pain. "Tell me, Jade, am I human? Do I even have a soul because I'm a replica? If I don't change I'm nothing more than a weapon Van created. Oh, Master Van, I thought he loved me!"

My face remained an expressionless mask impossible to read. Even if I wanted to show Luke outward feelings of sympathy I can't. I've restrained my true feelings for so long I can only smile and joke around. I don't know how to be serious and not let my anger control me. The least I can do is show physical affection without hurting him more. I cradled his young, round face in against my rough teal uniform, its cold metal buttons rubbing his skin and coarse woolen fabric grazing it. He went limp like a lost child against his mother's breast in my grasp burying his face, away from the sunlight, himself, his pain.

"Man, how embarrassing," he murmured into my chest, feeling hopeless. "I can't believe I'm acting this way, especially with you, Jade, of all people." He scowled glancing up.

"Why, have I insulted you, 'Master' Luke? You know, I can't keep holding you up like this." I grinned back, running my fingers through his roughly cut hair. "Because those old creaking bones of mine may give way any moment."

"Oh, why do you always pick on me?" he whimpered, breaking away. "And why are you all touchy feely suddenly? I was dumb even to even to talk to you. If only Guy were here, he'd understand cause he's always been there for me. What's taking him so damn long to search for his sword he dropped in the cave? I'm so tired of waiting." Luke stormed off to a row of trees further out ahead collapsing underneath in the shade.

_God, Jade is really getting on my nerves and here I thought I was happy to see him. I can't even tell what that sneaky jerk is thinking half the time_, he thought to himself, letting his eyelids flutter shut in the cool refreshing shade. His hand strayed to his chest, as he closed his eyes reflecting deeply. _Besides_, w_hat's this feeling I have in my heart when Jade touched me in that special way? I want to know yet I'm scared. It's not it is with Guy where I can be myself and ask him the things I don't know._

_Do I really pick on you, Luke? It's your fault you take me seriously,_ I wanted to say strolling over to where he reclined under his tree, leaned my frame against its trunk.

"Allow me to be honest," I started, sinking down beside him.

His hand dropped from his chest and eyes shot open the moment I said that. "W-wow! I think hell's gonna freeze over. Jade's actually serious," he gasped, half laughing loosing his breath.

"Of course, I always am." I flashed him the vestiges of a half honest smile. "I do not like explaining more than is necessary, but since Guy is preoccupied and your lack of awareness may lead to further mistakes, the responsibility as your babysitter falls on me."

"Why, you…!" Luke glared, raising a fist. "You're a real bastard, always saying things like that. I've wanted to do this for a long time. And I can now that no one's here." Luke grinned wickedly, holding his fist towards my face.

"Oh dear, I'm hurt," I sighed, grabbing it at the same time I tripped him, leaving him flat on his back wide eyed and shocked. I knelt over tracing my hand along his jaw, gazing directly in his bright emerald eyes, studying sunlight filtered in through the branches above dance in their dark green depths. I angled his jaw up to meet my face, stealing his lips in a kiss as I pinned him down below.

"That feeling…" Luke murmured softly, holding one of his hands over his heart between us and raising the other around my neck. "My heart, it's beating so fast. I've never felt this, Jade." A dreamy, lingering feel crept into his voice. "What kind of trick is this?"

Thump, thump, I felt his racing pulse in his arm around my neck, the beating of his heart in it awakening to new feelings of experience and longing. I let a real smile spread across my lips, still hidden beneath my disarming one I use all the time. "It's no trick, but an experience I want you to learn."

"Can I?" Luke echoed, lying beneath me with doubt. Determination burned in his gaze. "I want to grow, change, to be stronger yet I'm afraid and doubt myself so much."

"Try," I whispered down into his ear, letting my breath hit its inner shell, sending shivers down his spine. "Unless a bird flies after its broken wing has mended, how does it know if it can fly?" A lovely metaphor, poetic, I'm proud.

"Try, huh?" he repeated, arching up into me as the sensations from my breath spread over his quivering body. "Even if I don't understand what exactly I'm feeling I wanna try." _Or else I won't become the person you'd grow to respect, Jade, _he lingered in thought. _I have no words to explain how I feel. I just want you to hold me._

The dreams clouding his eyes poured out in the kiss he pressed to my lips, pulling me down with his arm twined around my neck into his supple form. I gasped feeling desire from my groin surge up around and through me. It's been so many years since I felt like this in the fires of passion with Peony from my youth. But Luke is so young, innocent, a replica. It's taking advantage of a 7-year-old living in a grown adult's body. I cursed myself rolling off onto the grass beside him, watching sunlight slip off the polished leaves of the branches above, playing in Luke's eyes, carving his exposed stomach below his half shirt, his arms and face in soft golden tones and highlighting his fiery hair.

"Jade," Luke whimpered, sitting up. "Why'd you stop?"

"My apologizes. I realize there's so many things you don't yet understand," I stated, pushing my glasses back up the bridge of my nose, eying him through them. "After considering your position, I think its best to wait until you're ready to handle the risks of an adult relationship, is that clear?"

"But I _am _an adult. I've grown since Akzeriuth, I'll prove it," he cried, rising up on his knees. "You're the one who doesn't understand the guilt I've been through, how I'll do anything to save everyone, even give my life so another Akzeriuth doesn't happen."

I couldn't believe my ears. I sat up slowly averting my gaze. I am cool like ice. I rarely get mad but for some reason his stupidity angered me. I guess I did grow to care about him after all. I used to ignore him, annoyed him for fun, but never showed anger or scolded him. I rose to my feet towering over, crossed my arms, and dropped my gaze on him.

"Silly boy," I chided. "You think about throwing away your life so easily because you don't know what it means to live."

"To…live?" Luke hesitated, pondering deeply. His sight trailed up to my face searching me for answers. Pain sown in his expression, he cried, "But how can I truly live? I'm a replica, a shadow of someone else. I don't even have parents. I was born in some lab as a freak of nature. You created us replicas, Jade, you know everything, don't you? Why did you make me if my only purpose was to be a weapon by destroying Akzeriuth's pillar and taking so many lives?"

Though in actuality Van created him, his birth in this world is due to my invention of fomicry. It's as if I were God and the soul I created is asking me why I made it. I cannot imagine being created by someone you love as a parent, only to be used in their schemes as a weapon. I wish I could go back in time and kill myself as an infant for all the abuses fomicry created.

"Jade, please tell me." The rising note of desperation gave way to his hands on my arms, shaking and begging me in their grasp.

Perhaps for the first time I was truly honest since meeting Luke on our journey. I had no words, no magic balm to ease his pain. Yes, indirectly the pain and confusion of his existence is my fault so I did what I could do by wrapping my arms around him.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you everyone who has read.

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Chapter 2

Luke's POV

I never imagined Jade could be open and warm. I mean this is Jade. I wouldn't be surprised if he really did bring back the dead. Hearing that, I expected his touch to be icy cold, but when he did that my heart fluttered in that special way. Some hidden tenderness melted through when his hand was on my shoulder, spreading like warmth over my arms and legs as fire, searing nerve endings that tingled, made my heart beat faster. I want to experience those feelings again, although Jade says I'm not ready. I'm tired of others doubting me, especially him cause I'll prove I've truly grown.

"I'm sorry Luke, I don't have your answers," he sighed regretfully, pushing aside my bangs and kissing me on my forehead. His lips are so soft like flower petals on my skin, his cologne intoxicating it rouses my senses from sleep, skin so pale and perfect its made from snow, and smooth hair a curtain of blond satin caressing my trembling face. His deep base voice crept in lilting tones up in my neck, in my ear invading me to my core once more when whispering, "My apologies," blowing gently inside its shell.

"It's…it's okay," I stuttered in broken, shaky tones, gasping when he revealed a row of clean white teeth, a half moon turned on its side inside his grinning mouth, grazing my earlobe with them and teasing kisses along my jaw. "You scolded me. That's the first time you've done that. I used to think it was bad, but maybe its good cause I have no common sense. I can understand you coming here to meet Guy in getting his help in rescuing Natalia and Ion from Mohs. After all, I'm still the same idiot you first met. Maybe Asch was right…" Dammit, I talk too much. What am I supposed to do when someone you think dislikes you says you're not ready for a relationship, and then teases you?

"Maybe he was…at one point," Jade mused, a hint of warmth creeping through as his lips played up to my other ear.

"If you can't teach me how to truly live, can you at least show me what this trick…those strange feelings I'm experiencing are about?" I'm implored, shivering under his grasp. If I'm truly going to change I need to learn more about the world, about life, those things Jade calls "adult relationships."

"Well, well." His playful grin softened to a smile, manipulative, honest? I can't tell. He wore a straight face releasing me, adjusting his glasses, before breaking out into another one, torturing me with, "Maybe until Guy gets here, if you promise to be a good boy and not tell anyone about what we're doing. Because if you do and you're naughty, well then, I'll just have to punish you, Master Luke." He wagged his finger holding back a grin.

"Uh, I won't, I promise," I replied, feeling stupid, glancing nervously towards the cave where I hoped Guy would come out and save me.

"You're a bad liar, Luke. I can tell when you're being naughty, or nice," Jade scolded, sliding an arm around me. Ever so gently, yet fully in control he whisked me away from sight of the cave further behind the trees that shielded us.

"Wh…what're doing?" I cried, failing in his grasp, pushed up against a tree trunk that parted wedging me firmly in place.

"Let's try something," Jade teased, fixing his eyes on me that twinkled through his glasses. "Since you say you're an adult and you _really_ want to change, perhaps you're ready for the relationships adults engage in as well."

"I am, show me," I whispered, lost inside his eyes, sparkling rubies that glowed.

I see swirling deep inside their facets regrets of creating fomicry, of loosing someone he loved, perhaps a mentor and of taking life in battle. I remember when General Cecille met him she said, "Are you Jade the Necromancer, the one who wiped our forces at Hod?" with terror stricken she hid behind rational calm.

I want to reach out, touch, healing his pain because I know what it is: the guilt of taking another's life, knowing that when you did, their hopes, dreams, aspirations died along with them because they are no longer alive to fulfill them, to chase them as a child does a butterfly in an open meadow even if the butterfly isn't caught. The act itself gives us hope, a reason to live. I'm searching for my reason, my butterfly. It exists somewhere inside Jade because he created us replicas, even if he can't put it into words, I'm sure someday the words will come.

I hope that by finding it in Jade, I'll become more than just a failed replica as Asch called me, who can't even control his hyper-resonance utterly useless to Van. I'm sick of being called those things and a spoiled brat by my comrades, who had every reason to abandon me back in Yulia City. But in this kiss I gave to Jade, my lips brushing against I want Jade to know I've changed because I'm not afraid to grow.

Although I want to, I'm also scared of those sensations I'm experiencing. They ran through me stirred from my deepest core, spreading like fire in my veins, as I felt Jade's weight heave over me, pushing me into the trunk. I groaned arching back, feeling every vertebra in the curve of my spine from my tailbone up to the nape of my neck pressed firmly against the bark. It is rough, woody in texture and Jade's body hot but restrained.

I have no idea how many years it's been he's done this kind of thing because for me it's really my first time. The tenderness of his kiss, his tongue playing against mine inside my mouth, told me he revealed a gentler side of himself he hid deep down inside. It's as if Jade has two hearts, one made of ice who is the soldier in him who has killed and wears that smile you can never read, and the other is made of fire: loving and human hidden under his outer heart of ice. I want to cry I've never gotten to know his warmer heart locked away from the world.

Sinking down from the trunk onto the wet refreshing earth, I felt grass caress my arms, and Jade's weight settle over. He propped himself on his arms, cradling my neck beneath with his gloved hands reaching up, cupping my face. One thumb of his traced my lower lip, running along my jaw, over my eyes relaxing me. I needed no words. Something in him sensed my unease. He read me like an open book with intelligence beyond my childish understanding. I cannot help but wonder why someone so amazing as him, the father of fomicry, a genius in ancient Ispanian, fonic artes, history and more cares about someone like me. Was he trying to tease me by pretending to be my friend?

"I don't understand you, Jade," I murmured sorely, tangling my fingers in his silky brown hair, scented sweet with conditioner, highlights catching gold in the sunlight filtered above. "Cause none of this makes sense."

He raised himself a hair's breadth over me, allowing a cool wall of air to rush between our heated bodies, straining under their clothes. Eying me keenly, his face remained perfectly impassive, an impossible read, only a beautiful mask I find lovely for a man nearing middle age, with its delicate bone structure and fine milky white skin.

"Tell me Luke, is this the first time you've ever kissed…someone?" he asked, gazing deeply into my eyes serious for a change.

I swallowed feeling my throat tighten, entire being contract. "…Yes," I admitted, ashamed. "I suppose its because I'm a replica, I haven't had the chance to grow like others, experiencing the things they do. When I first arrived at the manor after I was created by Van, probably in the Replica Lab in Belkend, I couldn't even walk or talk, really pathetic, huh? And living my life behind its walls, I never got the chance to get out and do things like date, meet people. During that time, I thought Master Van was the one person who loved me. That's why I went to Akzeriuth, for his…love. Because his feelings gave me a reason…to live."

My voice was choked with pain. "Now that my reason's gone, I don't know what to do, what I'm living for."

"It's easier to die than to live," Jade sighed, closing his eyes in thought. "Accepting the truth of Van's views of you and what happened is a difficult, but necessary thing."

"How can you say that so…calmly?" I asked soulfully. "It seems nothing ever bothers you, does it, Jade?"

He slowly opened his eyes, gazing deeply into my being, his low rich voice soothing to my heart. "Human history is full of turbulence," he said wisely. "Life has its up and downs as well. I suppose one learns to accept it. By doing that, living calmly in the present, one can best function in their rational mind, understanding what must be done."

"But how can I, Jade? I'm a coward cause life is so painful, like causing all that destruction at Akzeriuth." I hugged him hard, rolling over on top of him. He let his body fall into place supporting me, so calm and strong like a rock anchored in place and I'm water shaped by my surroundings as if in a container.

"No, you're not a coward, just in pain," he said softly, resting my head on his chest, tucking my bangs behind my ears. "I see you crying out in the middle of the night when you've had nightmares since Akzeriuth, crying out, "Please, I'm sorry, forgive me! I didn't mean to hurt you and take your life." And on that day you killed an Oracle Knight aboard the Tartartus when the God-generals attacked, you lied there awake at night shaking. When you asked me then, 'How can you take human life, Jade?" I thought deeply about what you said. I've come to realize that I'm still lacking that part of my humanity, because I still can't grasp for what it means for people to…die. That's really the reason I can say things and stay calm in situations when people are normally scared."

"We're so opposite. That's why I feel so responsible for the loss of life at Akzeriuth," I sighed, burying my face in the crook of his neck, rubbing against the fabric of his rough uniform and its collar underneath. "Jade, every night I try to sleep, I see the peoples' faces I killed, that one boy crying out 'Mommy, Daddy,' save me as he was sinking into the miasma and Tear and Natalia were helpless. He was only one life I saw swallowed before my eyes. How many hundreds more died like that in fear, haunting me in my sleep? Do you see the faces of people you've killed, Jade? I wonder if they became a part of the planet, at least their souls before returning as people."

"Hmm, you mean reincarnation? It cannot be disproved, but neither is it exactly scientifically proven, much how we cannot say if Lorelei exists for certain," Jade pondered, letting his chin sink to his chest caressing my face nuzzled to his neck. "As for religion, I don't concern myself with fate, miracles or faith. I will atone for the sins of fomicry I created by taking it back from Van and ending it. You could say indirectly my creation of replicas that advanced research into hyper-resonance, causing the destruction of Hod, like how you destroyed Akzeriuth is the same guilt I carry within."

"Jade…" I lost his name in my breath. I couldn't believe he opened his heart to me like that. Perhaps its because I am a replica and he's the father of fomicry we share this special relationship we can be close. "Thank you for being there for me. If you ever need a shoulder to lean on, I'm here for you."

"Oh, just the two of us? Even alone at night?" he teased, tilting his head towards me, allowing his lips to brush over my cheek, with his chin still sunk down on his chest. "You know what _that_ means…Luke."

"No, no, that's not what I mean!" I gasped, giddy with fear and excitement.

"I don't like teaching, passing on knowledge, but this I feel is important for you to understand in part of being human," Jade said gently, pushing me back an arms length. He stood up, helped me up to my feet and then dropped his gaze down, cupping my cheeks. "Luke, come here…" he urged, with a voice so deep and musical I couldn't help but followed filled with his heart.

I trembled quaking in my very body I could hardly breath, feeling his touch on my cheeks send waves pulsating through every limb and sinew of my body. My heart fluttered pounding up in my throat, wanting to jump out from my chest into Jade, making me melt in his arms beyond all time and space. His arms wound around my neck as I inclined instinctively up to meet his larger height, our lips brushing at first, he whispered in my ear, "This" as his very voice sank into my soul.

"Jade…" I lost my voice again in his name. Suddenly, my fluttering heart burst out in my voice, I cried in low strained tones, "I…I love you, Jade," seizing his lips in mine, claiming him as my own. Oh god, I can't believe I said that. My stupid heart took control of my mind. Yes, he'd kill me and I deserve it. Those military types hate guys that like other guys, right?

"Yes, Luke, I know," he murmured, his parted lips brushing on mine so lightly shivers shot through me, intensified when his teeth gently grazed my lips. "To be honest, when I first met you, I thought I'd never be able to like you."

"Yeah, I felt the same," I confessed, taking his lips back between mine. "I never imagined then I'd be having this sort of relationship, with you of all people." I hid my face in his chest after our kiss ended feeling so confused. "Is it okay for me to like you like this? I mean we're both guys."

"You should ask Guy about that. You know I don't like unnecessary explanations," Jade teased, lifting my head up, tickling my nose.

"But this…" I paused noticing that after Jade and I kissed our bodies somehow reacted.

Not a hyper-resonance like Tear and I colliding when we first met, but a physical reaction deep down inside our bodies. I felt it through Jade's uniform, straining under his clothes against his hip into mine. His face even now remained so calm, wearing that soft smile it seemed as if he didn't notice his arousal. Feeling his desire somehow ignited mine, making me want to explore it more but my mental defenses came up. A twinkle played in his eyes when he realized my awareness.

"Is something the matter, Luke?" he asked, inclining my chin up so our eyes met.

"You're…how do I say this? Aroused like me. My clothes are so…tight, it hurts," I gasped, wanting to reach down under my pants and do something. No, I wanted Jade to. Isn't that how you share special feelings with someone you feel close to?

"You should ask Guy about it as well. When you have, perhaps we can explore what to do about those…feelings," he put it subtly, turning his attention towards the cave entrance behind our grove.

"Hey! Don't leave me hanging!" I cried.

He released me from his grasp, fixing that cool but playful expression over his beautiful pale face. This only got more complicated. I just prayed from the bottom of my heart Guy won't get mad at me for asking.

TBC

A/N: Next chapter will be some Luke/Guy as Guy teaches Luke about things. Then we'll get back into Jade/Luke. Thank you for reading:D


	3. Chapter 3

I wrote this in one sitting. Hope it came out okay. There's some lime, Guy/Luke in this chapter as Guy teaches Luke about relationships, lime with Luke and Guy, nothing explicit like a lemon but I decided to put the warning here to be safe.

Chapter 3

Luke's POV

I can't believe I just told Jade "I love you." I feel like the biggest fool that ever existed. When I said that I expected Jade to hit me on the spot. Thank god Guy came. There was so much in my soul I wanted to bear, finding release in a friend. He stepped into the sunlight showered in its radiance, blond hair glowing gold where his highlights were caught in the light. His tanned face carved in bronze tones smiled sweetly and sapphire eyes were alight with joy to see me.

"Oh, Guy, I'm so glad to see you!" I cried, embracing him warmly. "There's so much that's happened I have to ask you."

"Hmm? Between you and the Colonel?" Guy surmised, casting a glance toward Jade who waited further ahead by the trees, leaning listlessly against one with his eyes closed and arms crossed idly in the shade. "I thought just as well you guys needed some time together. You were really hurt by what he said after Akzeriuth on board the Tartarus after we fell in the Qliphoth that, 'If I stay here I'll be annoyed by a certain whining brat. I think I'll go on deck,' I saw how pained you looked."

"Well, we discussed Akzeriuth, came to some understanding. But…" I paused, my voice dying into silence beneath the chirping birds, running stream whispering past the cave, leaves rustling peacefully in the trees overhead and ground animals scurrying in search of food. "Other…things happened I never imagined would when we were alone. I just started to open up to him, he kissed me, maybe I led him on, then I said to him, 'Jade, I love you.'"

Guy laid a gentle hand on my shoulder, capturing my gaze in his. "That what I thought. I could see it coming when you two first met. The way Jade's teased you seemed was his way of getting your attention, because maybe he's grown to like you."

"I believed he really hated me, Guy," I sniffled, putting my hand over his, still on my shoulder squeezing it to let him know how I felt. "But still I never planned falling in love. If it was Natalia I could understand since we're both engaged, maybe Tear though she's cold just cause she's a girl, but he…he's a guy! Isn't it wrong, two guys liking each other like this?" Desperation rang in my voice.

"Hey, it'll be okay, Luke, I promise," Guy said kindly, taking my hand around his neck to pull me in a hug. "After your kidnapping when you first came to the manor and you were born, you were helpless like an infant. I taught you how to walk, talk, and speak as if I were your father raising you from birth. I'll teach you about things people experience in relationships, so you and Jade can grow closer. I think this kind of relationship is good for you, even if it's with another guy."

"You've always been there for me," I cried, nuzzling my face into his neck beneath his shirt collar, feeling the warmth of his skin press to my cheek so tender and kind.

That was all we discussed for now, traveling with Jade to Daath to rescue Natalia and Ion kidnapped by Grand Maestro Mohs in order to stop peace talks between Kimlasca and Malkuth, since Kimlasca blamed Malkuth for the loss of Akzeriuth in preparing to declare war. On the way to Daath we stopped outside the Fourth Monument Hill where pilgrims paid their respects to Lorelei before entering the Holy City on the final round of their pilgrimage. At this point Jade separated from Guy and I to enter the city meeting up with Anise and Tear who'd gone ahead. There were still things I needed to ask Guy.

"Umm, Guy…" I stopped to catch my breath on the Hill's vista overlooking the city, its gothic architecture towering up to the sky supported by massive cathedral buttresses extending outward to the walls of the city like a giant tree spreading its branches. "There were things I experienced in my body, that didn't make sense when Jade and I were kissing…"

Guy wrapped an arm around me, walking me behind the monument to Lorelei where pilgrims prayed, up against its stony base supporting a massive statue of Yulia presenting the Score.

"Like this?" he asked softly, pressing me tenderly against the stony base, sensations of contact sending tingles through my body, awakening newfound desire.

"Y…yeah! How'd you know?" My eyes went wide with surprise, my breathing sped up and heart raced in anticipation as I felt myself grow aroused.

Guy's vivid blue eyes laughed with delight, and lips curled up to a smile, genuine, unrestrained and warm. "It's a normal reaction people feel when they get close," he explained, stepping back half an arm's length away to give me space. "You call it being turned on or having an…erection." He went quiet discussing something that obviously made people insecure; Jade too, having told me to ask Guy about all this adult stuff.

"I…I've embarrassed you, Guy, I'm sorry," I burst out, turning away, facing the monument's cold stony base in shame. "If I was a normal person instead of a replica, I'd understand those things and not have to ask…"

"Luke, I'm not mad, it's alright," he whispered lovingly, sliding his arms around me from behind. "You've always been like a son to me, a little brother, so it's okay if I teach you. If it were any other person, I wouldn't do this, but you're my best friend Luke. I love you."

I felt all my shame and worries melt in his tender grasp, turning to face him in relief.

"There are many kinds of love people experience," he continued, "The feelings we share are familial, or brotherly, and the kind between you and the Colonel is well…romantic. People who love each other accept we aren't perfect, learning from one another so we can truly grow."

"You are so mature, Guy, knowing those things. I thought growing meant simply atoning for one's sins for having caused another pain like Akzeriuth," I sighed, sinking into his grasp that caught me.

"What did I tell you back at the cave? Don't be so hard on yourself, do you understand? Sometimes I worry you overreact torturing yourself with unnecessary shame. It's true you can't change the past, but if you can grow from those painful experiences, saving other human lives in the future, then some good things came from that tragedy."

"You're right, I guess accepting one's imperfections is part of being human," I admitted, breathing out my fears at last. "Cause no one is born knowing everything."

"See? You do understand. You've grown Luke. Now I'll show you what to do, so you'll know where to take things with Jade." Guy released me, leaned up against the monuments supportive base, reaching for his belt undoing it.

What he was about to do reminded me of the time back at the manor before I explored the world. I knew Guy's phobia of women prevented him from having a girlfriend, but I didn't know what he did to remedy that. One day when I went to his room to get him for sword practice, I saw him alone crouched on the floor. His eyes were closed, breathing heavily, when his hands strayed down into his clothes relieving his desire. He made some noise and a relaxed expression spread over his face after he finished, although his clothes were a bit messy and he was sweaty and something coated his hands.

_I…I'm sorry, Guy_, I said at the time running away. I was always curious since then what he did but was too afraid to ask.

Things were really awkward between us for a while after that. It was as if I invaded his privacy, catching him doing something personal he wanted no one else to see. I suppose its only appropriate now in the present we resolve this misunderstanding, so I can grow from what I observed Guy doing at that time.

"I want you to know, this is a natural thing people do, sometimes friends will, or in relationships," Guy guided me, taking my hand in his over his stomach. "But when you're with someone you like doing this, it's different than being with a friend. The rest you'll have to experience on your own, Luke."

"Yeah, I know," I replied, somewhat nervous.

Sensing my unease he supported me against him, letting me lean my weight on him, so I could focus in the moment what he was showing me. "Relax," he whispered. "I won't tell anyone about this. I'm sure Jade understood and wanted you to learn. That's why he told you ask me, right?"

I nodded realizing I was safe; it was all right to do this. I closed my eyes, hearing Guy's breathing take inside him and the rhythm of gently beating heart sooth me, as my hand underneath his explored deeply into the intimate parts of his body without words, only unbroken mutual trust shared with his hand over mine joining us.

"Like that," he assured me, wrapping my hand around his arousal still hidden in his clothes. "If you don't know your own body and the way it works, you can't know another's sharing those…special experiences that bring people together."

His breathing deepened, heart thumped faster, guiding my hand to the motions over his length held in my hand. He felt so warm there, skin smooth like velvet, pulse beating through his body there like the heat I felt in his chest. With my other hand I tugged at the confines of his pants freeing him from their restraints, pulled down to his knees. He shivered at the cool air hitting his exposed arousal; still he kept eye contact perfectly relaxed, accepting of teaching me such an intimate thing.

"That feels…good, thank you, Luke," he moaned softly, thrusting into my hand. An expression of pure bliss crossed his face after I did this a bit, when muscles in his stomach contracted and let go with his entire body finding release, spilling his essence into my hand, hot as if part of his soul was inside it.

"Did I…scare you?" he asked gently, raising his other hand to my cheek. "Because I remember when I was doing this back at the manor, you ran off scared."

"Oh, I thought you were mad at me," I murmured, "I wasn't sure what you were doing like I do now."

After that exploration, he cleaned himself up and we rested together on the ground behind the statue away from all the pilgrims passing by and the world, just the two of us together. I pillowed my head on his shoulder, watching clouds sail lazily overhead in the lovely azure sky above. All time and space disappeared between the two of us, living in the moment at ease. To be honest, I wouldn't know what to do if Guy wasn't there. He's always been so gentle, kind, and loving whenever things didn't make sense.

I just hoped Jade would be open if I did this kind of thing. He's not direct with his feelings so it makes things so hard between us. Half the time he teases me, I can't tell if it's out of affection for liking or simply to play around. Although we were close physically back at Aramis Spring kissing, I still felt Jade held his true self back. When he said to me, _I've come to realize that I'm still lacking that part of my humanity, because I still can't grasp for what it means for people to…die. That's really the reason I can say things and stay calm in situations when people are normally scared, _that's when I realized some part of him truly died inside, preventing him from fully feeling by embracing his humanity and passion.

I don't know what exactly happened in Jade's past, or made him the cool, distant reserved person he is now, but I want to get to know him because…I love him from the bottom of my heart beyond all words and expressions.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Jade's POV

I suspected that Luke followed up on my advice about consulting Guy before the possibility of pursuing an intimate relationship with me, at least from his point of view. As was seen in the example of the Cheagles back at Ortion Cavern, replicas' abilities including mental cognition tend to inferior to their originals. I noticed at the abandoned Fomicry Research we discovered there, discovering replica data about the people from the destroyed island of Hod, Asch worked the computer with a mental dexterity beyond anything Luke is capable of, confirming once again the inferiorities replicas face compared to their originals. They are similar personality wise, but for all I know, Luke's "inferiority" to Asch may be his greatest strength, because he's willing to see his faults and grow. I never imagined in my earlier days as a fomicry researcher, I'd witness the turmoil of a replica searching for his identity, because perfect isofons didn't exist then, living long enough to recognize their sense of self as cognizant beings.

I only hoped Luke wouldn't hate me for his existence, having been born as a weapon. I'll do everything I can to atone for my past in the creation of fomicry and its research into hyper-resonance leading to the destruction of Hod. Watching the people of Akzeriuth perish through Luke's hyper-resonance was seeing the death of Hod again and the sins of my past repeated. Although Luke thinks his birth was a bad thing, I want him to know he has a purpose in living. Perhaps through helping him find it, I can find my purpose too.

It all started with loosing Professor Nebilim I dearly loved. A mentor like a mother, she became my light and salvation. If I could use the Seventh Fonon like her, she might love me with all her heart like my real mother. That's why I experimented with the Seventh Fonon when her house caught on fire, a burning timber landed on her opening a wound, with the loss of blood causing her death. Dist and I took her to the edge of town, I used my fonic artes revive her only to result in the creation of a monster, which escaped on a rampage taking many lives. I saw my old violent self in the malevolent Nebilim replica when our eyes locked a moment before her disappearance, when I used to go out killing monsters for amusement with my artes.

Ever since I discovered I could use fonic artes with ease skilled adults couldn't master, I enjoyed testing them out on the beasts outside Keterburg. I found it twisted form of research although it was unethical killing other creatures. Professor Nibilim helped me to stop that realizing life was precious, even if I didn't understand it, so when she died I felt the value of life with all my heart for a moment. To tell Dist that no replica would ever replace her was just too painful. After the destruction of Hod I ceased fomicry research telling Dist how I really felt. He just couldn't let her go, with his grief eventually driving him to the brink of insanity into a form of mental instability from which he never recovered. When Nebilim died it was simply too painful to reach out and love again. Driven into numbness I turned to researching forbidden texts, applying Fonic Sight to the fon slots in my eyes to strengthen my artes, wearing fontech glasses from that point to regulate them.

"Look what I did, Nephry, amazing, isn't it?" I remarked to my sister.

"Nii-chan, what have you done? Your eyes are red, they scare me," she cried.

"Please, let me explain," I begged her.

She thought I was abnormal already. I tried to regain her trust by creating a copy her favorite doll through fomicry when it broke, but she still thought of me as strange. I supposed we grew apart. When the Curtiss military family heard of my accomplishments and adopted me, I bade goodbye to the charred rubble of Professor Nebilim's house, the places I played as a child, all that represented the old me before becoming who I am now.

My heart's long been dead since Nebilim died so I can't understand the difference between life and death, even if it was once in my nature to begin with. That's why I told Luke to value that difference in himself when I said, _You're not a coward, just in pain._

I wonder if it's something that can ever be regained. That understanding Luke embodies I hope to someday gain for myself. That's probably why Luke came into my life, to awaken it at the same time he sought to be recognized as a human being and not just a replica. Ever since he found out he's a replica he asked me, "Why was I born? Why do I exist? What is my purpose?" Those are the questions he asked me as the father of fomicry, I struggled at a loss to answer.

You can imagine the difficulty I faced when we finally spoke at Keterburg. It was after we escaped from Daath having rescued Ion and Natalia from Oracle Headquarters. Mohs had King Ingolbert so we had no choice but to seek Emperor Peony's help in averting this war, and there was still the possibility of St. Binah collapsing as Van is trying to destroy the Outer land an its inhabitants. Just when things couldn't get worse, while we were heading to Grand Chokma to meet Peony, a defense mine by Rotelro Bridge damaged the Tartarus's engines, forcing us to dock at the nearest port outside Keterberg.

If it was any other port beside Keterberg Bay I wouldn't of minded. Luke seeing my hometown and even my sister sparked curiosity, making the boy pry even deeper into my past and affairs. When the Malkuth soldier there interrogated us, I told him we would report to the governor of Keterberg, my sister instead. I didn't think at the time our trip to Keterberg would drive Luke and I closer.

"So you were born here, Jade? This is the first time I've seen snow, how cool is that?" exclaimed Luke, running off into port as soon as we landed. "Let's go see the governor and get the Tartarus repaired!"

When everyone else accompanied Luke ahead, Guy remained by the dock, turning to me solemnly in the falling snow. "Colonel, there's something we need to discuss," he began, glancing at Luke along Tear, Natalia and Anise heading out.

"Yes, if it's about Luke, I understand," I answered, loosing myself in the icy waters of the bay lapping up against the dock, rocking it to and fro, undulating outward to sea through this bitter snowy night.

"You know how naïve he still is when it comes to things of the world," Guy observed, following the cold frothy waters dance in and out unbroken. "It was partly Natalia's fault, but mostly mine he turned out the way we did. We never scolded him, made realize his faults. When I came out of the cave at Aramis Spring, I saw you scold him, and I want to…thank you."

"…It wasn't my intention," I sighed, glancing down at Guy, taking in his shocked and hurt reaction at my tone in the feelings sown over his face. "If you were eavesdropping when we were outside the cave, then I must assume you witnessed the intimate interactions between Luke and I. Is that so?"

"I didn't mean to, Colonel, I'm sorry," Guy apologized, head sinking in shame. "But I thought it'd be a good experience for Luke…" He swallowed, a lump forming in his throat when our eyes met, his voice growing soft and strained. "I remember when all of us met, he reacted to you more than anyone we were with, got mad when you joked about him and Tear being lovers, cause you were the one then he really liked, even if he was too ignorant to know then."

"Hmm, I didn't notice then," I chuckled, a sly smile creeping over my lips, casting a playful glance at Guy just to irritate him more. "I thought perhaps such an intimate relationship developed between the two of you over this course of time. That is why you did…shall I say, spend some 'special time' with Luke by the Fourth Monument Hill outside Daath?"

"You sneaky bastard! Don't tell me you were—" Guy froze with shock, his expression priceless, I wish I had a camera.

"What are you talking about, Guy?" I teased, innocently shrugging. "As an officer I am a gentleman, and you know gentleman would never do such things. And you take me seriously? Of course, I didn't do that. I told Luke it would be best to ask you about those…things he didn't understand. If you speak of my relationship to Luke with anyone, even Mieu, I fear I'll loose any respect I've gained."

"I think they would accept…but I understand," he acknowledged solemnly, nodding.

The bond of love shared between Luke and Guy reminded me exactly of the one that joined Professor Nebilim and I, seeing the past come painfully alive reflected in the mirror of their love. Perhaps even though I've been severed from my true feelings all those years, somewhere deep inside one of the many mental dams I constructed around my emotions broke, showing through in the depths of my blood red eyes my sister called frightening.

"Are you thinking?" Guy inquired, noting the silence.

"Oh, it's nothing. Shall we go?" I proposed, cocking my head with a smile, the soft one I always use to mask my true intentions.

We rejoined the others trekking silently, through a dark snowy night with only the stars to guide us until we reached Keterburg by foot, a three-hour hike in such inclement weather typical most of the year round. When we stopped by the governor's residence in Keterburg, my sister flew at me from behind her desk crying, "Jade, big brother, you're alive, I thought you died! How I missed you?"

"Yes, Nephry, it's been a while, not since your wedding," I greeted her coolly in her office.

Her brown eyes darted out from behind her cat's eye glasses at Luke locked on him. _He's the replica I heard about, the one that can help my brother,_ she thought and that's when trouble began.

After reserving a room for us at the inn while the Tartarus's repairs were underway, she pulled Luke aside whispering, "Come by later when you're alone, okay?"

"What is it, Nephry?" I asked when Luke left, any of my warmth melting away.

"N…nothing, really, it's nothing, okay? Go join Luke and the others at the inn," she insisted, turning away toward her desk nervously.

"As your older brother, you know I've always been aware when you're lying and when you're not…" I stood behind her sensing her tremble under my gaze.

At last she faced me her features expressing pain. "Big brother, you haven't been the same since Professor Nebilim died and you turned your eyes that scary color. Instead of killing monsters for fun like you did before you met her, you tortured Kimlascan soldiers captured during the Hod War against Malkuth for information. Going so far as to experiment on the dead bodies of the slain earned you the name of Necromancer. Please, Nii-chan, stop this and become the Jade I used to know, played with in the snow, who was normal before he invented fomicry." She raised her hands clasping them as if in prayer, but really imploring.

"Dear little sister, that was over 26 years ago before I was 9. We are adults now. Why do you still think of me as abnormal even after all those years?" I asked, pacing in front of her. "That replica Luke is another's creation, not mine, so I see no reason for you to discuss my past with him."

"But Jade," she protested, grabbing me. "Don't you still want to revive Professor Nebilim?"

"I ceased to think on that long ago. Don't worry, dear, goodnight, I'll see you in the morning." I hugged her goodbye straying to the lobby of the governor's residence just outside, where the receptionist's desk and waiting room was. Just conveniently Luke happened to be there, having eavesdropped over our entire conversation. I thought he'd left with the others at the inn, thinking he could return once I came back meeting my sister alone.

"You know better than to listen in on people's conversations, acting like a naughty boy. Now, go to the inn and rest," I chided, stopping in front of him, crossing my arms.

"Stop telling me what to do," he retorted glaring up, with a fist raised at my face.

Given my usual apathy, I could care less, but I was concerned about his mental state as a fighter in our cause stopping Van. Normally, I'd let a sadistic smile cross my features to taunt him. However, since Akzeriuth every night we stopped at an inn, I saw him tossing and turning in sleep, whimpering from his nightmares, "Akzeriuth, I…I killed them all," then he'd burst out into tears so deep in pain we couldn't wake him. I had enough sense not to push him, already on the verge of a breakdown. So I decided to be direct.

"From everything I have observed, Luke, I'd say the cause of your pain is what you perceive to be the loss of Van's 'love,' if indeed he held any," I said, regarding him coolly. Blunt but direct, perhaps cruel, I couldn't help being honest in a heartrending situation as this.

His emerald eyes swam with emotion like whirlpools in their depths. His crimson bangs shivered over his smooth skin and delicate mouth fell open. Any words wanting to come out were choked back in his throat. In broken sorrowful tones, he cried at last, "I suppose your right." He shook his head. "No, Jade you're lying, Master Van wouldn't truly be like that, even if he betrayed me. He was the one person who took me seriously before Akzeriuth, listened to me—" His eyes pleaded for answers.

"As his weapon for the sake of hyper-resonance to take many lives in his attempt to create a replica world?" I asked cynically in response eying him hard. "That means every human being alive in this world would die in the miasma when the Outer lands collapsed, all for the sake of Van's vision. Do you believe such a man is truly sane or cares?"

He was starting to calm down, act more adult since we met at Aramis Spring, but his state of great pain overwhelmed any logic. "No, but just shut up, Jade," he shouted, brimming with tears. "It hurts, what he said that I'm useless, a foolish replica." He clutched his hand over his heart weeping. "What's the point in living if one has no use, their a copy. You don't understand what it means to live like that, having an existence with no purpose. Maybe that's why I think about throwing away my life so easily if it means others can be saved."

"Again, you talk about dying, because you don't know what it means to live. The fact you are a replica doesn't change, Luke, you have 7 years worth of memories that define you and more to come on our journey," I assured, cupping his cheeks in my palms.

"Jade…" he cried, choked in feeling. "…I…I…" trailing off, lost in my hold on his cheeks. "I'm…I'm so confused. You're right. The truth is I'm…scared, cause I don't know who I am, what I'm supposed to do."

An existential fear possessed him of not knowing the reason behind his own existence. I am responsible for his birth. That's why I feel so deeply, even if I deny it. My apathy melts away at his struggle and pain, something I've never experienced with others. I said nothing burying his head in the warmth of my chest, locked in by my arms rocking him. I did what I could do planting a kiss on his forehead beneath his matted bangs soaked from his sweat and tears. The salty taste from his mingling fluids on my lips tasted sad.

I knew not what else to do, so I coaxed him, "Come to the mansion with me where His Majesty Peony used to live. I often spent time there in my youth, finding comfort."

He nodded wordlessly, following my path.

A luxurious home nestled next to the governor's house; it'd be abandoned for years tended to only by a maid for upkeep who visited weekly. I figured the intimacy might help him feel better, at the same time it'd relieve my dormant desires, pent up for 15 years since my last relationship with Peony. I can live years without feeling. However, the primitive urge for lovemaking, if it may politely be called that, is harder to control, one I find beckons every now and then.

"Is this His Majesty's residence?" Luke murmured, half dazed, exhausted from his prior outburst scanning the mansion's lavish interior: including its cream colored wall, ornate wall hangings of Peony's ancestors, black lacquer dressers, polished oak tables, rugs adorning the floor, and a splendid fireplace in its main living room flanked by brass tongs to tend to a fire when in use.

"Indeed." I used my fonic artes to start a small fire, its flicking flame casting fantastic shadows that played in the corners and crags of the homely room. I swept Luke up in my arms laying him on a velvet-cushioned couch in front, the one Peony and I spent hours on as youths, sharing stories of fomicry research, new artes we discovered, and my latest chapters in books on artes read by researchers worldwide.

"What're doing, Jade?" Luke gasped, swallowed in by its cushions.

"Must you ask so many questions?" I sighed, raising a hand to my forehead in exasperation. "You've grown to be a friend, but your ignorance is really getting on my nerves…"

"Yeah, well you're acting obnoxious too," he grumbled, glaring up from the couch. "It was embarrassing asking Guy asking Guy to show me this…stuff." A blush colored his face at that word.

A soft smile played over my lips as I bent down over his form.

"Wh…what's so funny?" he snapped, tensing under my lips brushing his. "I know Guy, I trust him. I hardly know you, even though we've traveled this long. Is it true, you really killed monsters for fun when you were young like Nephry said? And those Kimlascan soldiers, when you interrogated them, what did you…"

I silenced him with a kiss stealing his lips, pinning his arms above his head, holding his supple body below mine with my weight. He breathed heavily, heaving under my frame, wrapping his arms around me in a needful embrace.

"Jade, when I said I loved you before, I meant it, really did. But now I'm a little…scared cause of those things I heard Nephry say." He swallowed hard, hiding his face in my neck.

"Yes, Luke," I replied, stroking his hair. "But in times of war, you must understand men commit violent acts they wouldn't dream of in civilian life. I dislike discussing my past, because I've done things in the name of duty quite violent. But I want you to know though, Luke, you have no need to fear me. Is that clear?" I rolled onto my side, hugging him against the back of the couch.

He whimpered shyly, lifting his head up so we met eye to eye a hair's breath apart. "I know, but its still strange, you acting nice…" he insisted, trembling.

"I suppose, but you hold a special…place," I confessed, holding his hand over my heart.

"Does that mean you feel about me the same way I feel about you?" he whispered, grasping my hand over my heart. Great affection flowed in his voice, glowed in his eyes brightening his face. "Do you…love me?" he held his breath in fear.

I raised his hand from my heart up around my shoulder, wrapping my own arm around his waist. "Love…that's a strong word," I remarked mildly. "I do not think I can feel it given my nature, so it doesn't hold your meaning if it meant anything to me, but I can say I've grown to like you…"

Luke's eyelids fluttered half shut; firelight reflected dancing in their depths and his mouth stretched to a smile. "Well, that's good enough for me," he chuckled, having matured at this point in his development to accept others' viewpoints that differed from his own. "Natalia used to read those stupid romance books back at the manor before this adventure began, where the guy and girl say that silly stuff, 'I love you,' before doing anything sexual so its all good, then one fights with the other when they find out the other didn't mean it, dumb huh? I don't know if I'm any smarter than the guys and girls in her books…"

"No one is perfect because we are human," I assured him, winding my arm tighter around his waist so our bodies were pressed flush on our sides.

"Guy said that too. Man, I'm stupid, to think I can take weight of the world on my shoulders and handle it all like after Akzeriuth." Luke's smile turned sad as he clasped my hand over his cheek between our bodies. "Which reminds me, I wanted to give you this." He sat up resting his legs over my body, reaching into his jacket. A soft white glow emanated from his hand off of the petals of a magical selenia that blossomed only in Yulia City, down in the depths of the Quilphoth.

Its silken petals glistened with dew that sparkled like diamonds, caressed between Luke's fingers. My fonic sight detected in some dew droplets remnants of another fonic signature, water to be exact salty in composition, Luke's tears no doubt once shed on the flower when he plucked it.

"Those selenias grow only in the Quilphoth. I see you cried at the same you picked it, by the remains of the fonons your tears left on its petals," I observed, sitting up and swinging my legs out from under his body back towards the floor. "Tell me, Luke, what prompted you to cry?"

His eyes went wide, mouth fell open in surprise and he dropped the selenia on his lap.

I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose, to draw his attention to my eyes. "I did that with my fonic sight. By applying fonic artes to my eyes, I use their fon slots to gather three times the ordinary rate of fonons in my body to enhance my artes in combat. The glasses I wear are fontech, so my artes don't go out of control hurting people and things. Unfortunately, my eyes turning red were a side effect of the arte I applied, allowing me to see fonons such as the tears you left behind. That's how I know you cried, even if ordinary sight can't see it."

His face expressed shock at my abilities, as his hands strayed back towards the selenia on his lap clutching it in his fist. "That I existed only to hurt others, bring them pain like I had at Akzeriuth…" his choked words struggled out.

"You should know a replica has as much right to exist as its original," I explained, lifting my hand to his cheek. "A perfect one like yourself may share the same isofonic signature with its original, even genetically identical like twins, but you are born experiencing your own memories that create who you are. Do you understand?"

A lumping forming in Luke's throat, he nodded, holding my hand by his face.

"As a researcher, I respect Van's innovations in fomicry using the Seventh fonon to create mentally stable replicas," I said calmly, my voice laced underneath with a rare display of anger. "However, as a scientist with ethics, I disapprove of how he's abused the replicas he's made. That's why I'm journeying with you to stop Van's wrongs, taking back fomicry myself."

"Thank you, Jade, that means a lot," Luke spoke, collecting himself at last, assured by the tone in my voice. He hugged me hard back against the couch. "I know you don't like teaching, but you've become my greatest teacher," he admitted, sniffling.

I couldn't help but smile softly, kissing the back of his hand.

"It's been such a long day with the Tartarus breaking down, come here to repair its engines at port," Luke yawning, returning my smile as I kissed him.

"Then go to sleep. Peony's study is right there." I released him, casting my visage towards the Emperor's study behind us leading to another wing of the building.

He bade me goodnight with a longing in his eyes. I suppose comforting him has caused him to fall in love deeply with me beyond all question. Still, with my lack of emotion in general, I don't know how I'll handle this or how it'll turn out. Only the sands of time can tell.

TBC

Some lime next, I hope Luke gets certain dreams, hehe. Pretty long chapter, thank you for your patience.


	5. Chapter 5

Thank you everyone who's reviewed so far. You inspire me to keep writing more. Sorry I haven't updated recently. I had some computer trouble which needed to be fixed. Just when Luke thinks things will work out between him and Jade, romance is always more complicated than it seems.

Chapter 5

Luke's POV

I fell asleep on the couch of Peony's study with thoughts of Jade invading my dreams. His delicate, slim fingers, gentle even after wielding the deadliest of spears, surging with powers in his artes, caressed my cheek lightly through his elbow length gloves, the sensation of its slick, silky fabric only dividing my face from the heat of his flesh. Were his hands calloused, soft or scarred? You can tell much about a person by their hands. The sound of his gloves sliding off his arms sent shivers up my spine, intensified to tingles washing over when his fingertips, with their feather light touch ghosted across my face smelling sweet from oil. My eyes fluttered open clouded by dreams, my lips parted uttering his name, "Jade…" I whimpered in lost tones.

Possessed by thoughts of him I couldn't sleep even if I tried. My body told me otherwise by the ache mounting in my pants. The more I ignored it tossing on my side, the more it protested hardening against the confines of my clothes. Then I remembered what Guy told me, I could alleviate my ache through touch in those regions of my body, stroking away the fire until at last I found release. Yes, I could do that, pretend my hand was Jade's, that he was there telling me he loved me, felt the way I did even if he never dared voice it.

I shifted my position, fumbling with my belt, allowing my hands to stray, closing my eyes, imagining as best I could his hand really there. A few waves of pleasure coursed through, strictly bodily, leaving my heart empty. No, it didn't work, I wanted him more, feeling as if I myself occupied this lonely universe, without another to reach out and touch my pain. My heart sank in that image, while my mind retorted back, _you know how cold Jade really is. There's no way in hell a jerk like him would really care. Any moves he's laid on you by sending you to Guy, is really his way of getting rid of you, stupid boy. _

"No, Jade, please tell me its not true," I cried softly to myself sitting up, alone in the darkened room of Peony's study, where just next door Jade was out in the living room, maybe the kitchen engaged in some reading or artes.

"Stop being afraid, you're finally alone with him, if you don't approach him now you'll never have the chance again," I told myself, gliding through the dark to the single crack of light from the next room over.

The old metal knob of the fancy wood stained door creaked as I turned it, pushing it open on its hinges inch by frightful inch. I steeled myself for a blow, a mental imaginary one flying straight at me the moment I entered his space. Only embers dying in the fireplace that glowed like fireflies, dying shadows that flicked off the mansion's scarlet-colored walls, retreating in corners like phantoms greeted me lacking words. My sight darted over in front of the couch where Jade and I reclined, where I thought he might be, only to find the depressions of where we sat still imprinted in its cushions. Hearing papers shuffle the next place in the kitchen, I raced there on my feet to spy him alone in study.

"Yes, Luke?" His blood red eyes shot up from over the edges of a manuscript, one I guessed in ancient Ispanian by the curvature of its text. His gaze hit me directly, without his glasses laid aside a pile of manuscripts on the table. A small candle illuminated it its space, otherwise dim as if swallowed in shadow. The little flame flickered nervously off Jade's face, hair and clothes in a thin, ragged line, a glow just off the edges of his form.

"You're glasses, Jade, you're not wearing them," I remarked, feeling in the confines of my pants that ache start up again at the sight of his beauty and grace. "You look so young without them on. You're face is really…beautiful…" I murmured dreamily.

"I thought my face was always beautiful, even with them on." He gestured to himself, holding back a grin. His sight skimmed down me taking some mental note. "I see the level of your blood fonons has increased dramatically in, shall I say, certain regions of your body, meaning you're_—_"

"Don't say it! I know," I growled. _Aroused._

"Say what? I had no intention of saying any such thing," he feigned, breaking out in his grin. "Since you unwittingly cast me into the role as your teacher, perhaps I should continue your lessons where Guy left off, answering a question children often ask: where do babies come from?"

"My god Jade, SHUT UP!" I exploded, ready to knock him out. "When we first met, I thought you were just some obnoxious four eyed fool, but now I know you're really scary, inside and out, all of you!"

He chuckled innocently as if I were the one at fault, rising to his feet over me. "Sexuality is fascinating to study. Does it embarrass you, Luke? In fact, I was just studying the sexual practices of Dawn Age culture in that manuscript."

I froze feeling a blush the shade of a tomato color my face so red, I thought it might really burst.

"I see my answer is yes. It holds an interest for some people, much like human organs do for autopists," Jade continued. "Relax, Luke, you may give yourself a heart attack, or spontaneously combust, then I'll have to clean you up, or perform an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Did I ever tell you, Luke, it was my childhood dream to be an autopist?"

I rolled my eyes at his comment, closing the distance between us. "No Jade, but I guess that's what makes you…different," I said with a smile, not meaning to hurt him.

"No, cold," he admitted with such candor, I felt truly bad. "It's the truth, so I wonder, how come you've developed feelings for one such as myself?" eying me with wonder.

"I guess cause I was an empty replica…" My voice softened and gaze fell to Jade's feet. "But when you say I have a special place in your heart, that you're traveling with me to right Master Van's wrongs, that I have as much right to exist as my original, I feel happy cause…I'm needed."

I smiled sadly, hugged him burying my face in his chest. He hand traveled up the pulse in my neck, resting below my jaw. He angled it up ever gently so our eyes met and I lost myself deep in his blood red pools. Yes, Nephry might have found them frightening, even monstrous but to me they were…beautiful, with the light of a single flame from the candle on the table dancing in their depths like glowing rubies, alive. I took out the selenia from my jacket I offered him before, the one with my tears I cried on, running its petals along Jade's lips.

"For me?" he mused sweetly, inhaling its scent.

I nodded, leaning up to kiss kissing his lips through its petals. "It's a symbol that I've changed, I'm searching for my reason to live."

"Indeed, your tears are part of its essence," Jade whispered, lowering the selenia between us and claiming my lips directly. "If something should happen to us on this perilous journey we've embarked, let us promise to place it on the grave of the one who looses their life in remembrance."

A rare display of emotion I never imagined possible shone through Jade's reserved features, expressing his masked affection. He was never one to show feeling like this but when he did, he meant it allowing an icy layer of his heart to melt, letting me in just a little further. It'd take a long time to melt it all, perhaps I couldn't but the thawing of this layer was another step towards reaching inside him.

I knew excessive sentimentality annoyed him, giving him a reason to make fun of me but I couldn't help welling in feeling. We are so opposite, it's a wonder we find any cohesiveness like fire and ice melding together. "Jade, no one's going to die, we're making it through this together," I uttered in desperation, tightening the circle of my arms around him.

"Yes, but don't underestimate Van's resolve," he reminded, ever the realist, letting his chin drop down to rest on my shoulder and eyes slowly close. "Since the destruction of Hod, Van has known only the loss of his people and hatred of the Score that tragedy couldn't be stopped. He wants back his family and home, even if they're replicas. I too, have endured my share of tragedies like Van, including Nebilim's death and that of the Tartarus when the god-generals first attacked. I knew those men from the time I entered Malkuth's military, fighting by their side like their fathers, sons and brothers…"

"Just like me at Akzeriuth," I sniffled. "Drowning in all that pain, Master Van's become so blinded, thinking people can never change. He was such a great man, Jade. Tear told me he's like a father to her. She loved him cause he always came back to visit her even from the Outer Lands. But one he when he left, she told me he changed. What caused such a great man, my sensei to fall like that?"

"As if grace existed before sin," Jade remarked cynically, releasing me. He reached for his glasses on the table, laying the selenia there, slipping his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose, his warmth vanishing and coldness masking his face. "The simple fact remains we face a skilled enemy, dangerous in his resolve to create a replica world at the cost of its originals, every human being alive. Do you believe such an enemy is worthy of the mercy you so cherish?" He narrowed his eyes through his glasses eyeing me harshly.

I stepped aside under the heat of his gaze, following my intent. "No," I cried, shaking my head, "He shouldn't. But I still respect him. At least I used to when I loved him like a father, like Tear did. When I see his indifference tearing her apart, although she acts so tough, how Guy wants him to be the friend he used to know, I hate him seeing him cause my friends so much pain!"

I almost burst into tears; reaching behind to draw my blade in battle as if Van were in front and I could strike. "Since Akzeriuth I've felt empty, having no mentor to guide me like Van did. Maybe in our relationship I unfairly put you in that role." My arms dropped to my side, I sighed feeling stupid in Jade's controlled presence.

"It's true, Luke, I dislike teaching, but I have something to gain from our friendship as well," Jade assured gently, his warmth returning in his arm around my shoulder. He guided me towards the front entrance where we first entered into the living room. "There's something I wish to discuss in regards to that. Come, let's go outside for a breath of fresh air."

A lump formed in my throat, constricting my breath, my heart racing as he helped me slip into a fur-lined coat to protect against Keterberg's bitter cold. He dressed himself in one before stepping out with me onto the mansion's front porch. Its broad eaves sheltered us from snowflakes dancing down, alongside memory particles glowing like brilliant fireflies of every color, a sign the Sephiroth were weakening, that the vibration of the planet's core intensified, leaking memory particles through the Radiation Gate northwest of Keterberg, mixing in the atmosphere.

"I've never seen actual memory particles," Jade exclaimed, catching one in his palm, stepping out into the street. "They've witnessed the planet's birth, the struggles and triumphs of humanity throughout the Dawn Age and today. They are what merged with the first through six fonons, giving birth to the Seventh, which is what composes your entire body, Luke."

The memory particle glowing in his hand flew towards me melting into my body as warmth rushing through my chest.

"See? They are drawn to you as am I, but unlike them, I can't go there." Jade held his hand over my thumping heart. "Because even though you say you love me and truly mean it, I fear I'll never be able to do the same. That is why I called you out here to tell you, perhaps a romantic relationship with me may not…work." Again, a rare hint of emotion made itself known in his tremulous voice, quivering lips, and hesitant red eyes.

I couldn't believe I was hearing this. Jade told me before he didn't really understand what it meant for living things to die, that it was something he lacked in his nature. I should have realized he meant the same with love. He wanted to stop me from falling in love deeper with him beyond the point of no return, when it would be too late for me to realize he couldn't love me back. After all, he's so disconnected from his emotions like he locked them up, stuffed them deep down inside, and stopped feeling them after poor Nebilim's death. Her passing must have been to him what Akzeriuth was to me, a tragedy so great it wounds your soul haunting you forever.

"Maybe you're right, Jade…" Pain choked my voice, my emerald eyes grew watery, and sinuses stuffed. "But I believe people can change, even though you tell me you can't feel for me what I do for you. After all, no one can force another person to love them, just as they can't change, like Van staying the same forever. You said, Jade, you learned a lot by watching me. If there's anything you've realized, I want you to know people can change, even you."

I closed the distance between us in the street, in the dance of falling snowflakes and memory particles, placing my hand on Jade's beating heart. "Because in the time I've known you, you've changed, even if you don't realize it yourself," I whispered, gazing at my reflection mirrored back in his lovely crimson eyes. They glowed an eerie, but hauntingly beautiful shade in the night, catching the light of the street lamps amidst the snow.

"I…" His breath caught in his throat, clasping his hand over mine, lifted from his chest.

_Peony once said the same thing to me many years ago when he told me, Jade, I love you I want to be with you forever, _Jade thought to himself, gazing at my hand in his. _I said I couldn't love again after Nebilim's death and pushed him away. So he came after Nephry as a way to be close to me instead. And Nephry was devastated cause she thought Peony really loved her._

"Luke, perhaps you are right, but I have much to think need to think about," Jade explained, stroking my cheek gently.

I knew from his touch he told the truth. There was nothing else I could do at this point to show my respect by giving him his space. The old me would of complained and yelled, but I knew better now since Akzeriuth.

"I understand, Jade," I replied, smiling sadly, kissing the back of his hand on my face. "I think I'll head back to the inn. I'll see you in the morning."

He nodded in acknowledgement and we parted ways. I noticed on my trek to the inn someone snuck out in the middle of the night, their tracks made recently after mine judging by how filled in they were with snow. They were small, the size of a girls, with something dragged behind her, Tokunaga. If it was Anise, what was she up to? I should have known my absence along with Jade's would draw attention. And Anise is always poking her nose in peoples business when it comes to romantic relations. But I was too tired to do anything. I'd let Jade handle it as I headed back to the inn.

After I left Jade noticed the tracks, following them to the side of Peony's mansion, where the road stopped in a dead end behind other houses on the periphery of the town. His keen sight took in a doll lying at the end of the road there, soaked in water from the snow, somewhat muddy from lying in the road.

He sighed, bending over to pick it up. "Anise," he chided in a fatherly tone. "It's not smart to let Tokunaga get damaged like that, even if he's a toy since he is still your weapon."

A shiver echoed behind some bushes hugging the side of the mansion.

"Anise, if you don't come out, I'll tell your mom and dad back at Daath you've been bad, and they'll cut back your allowance. Perhaps I'll even keep it and buy myself some new fontech glasses from Belkend," Jade teased, waving Tokunaga to draw her out. "Yes, Tokunaga, you think they'd look good? I could sell you there for extra gald as well."

"Colonel, you're so mean!" Anise whimpered, stumbling out into view. She frowned grabbing her doll.

"No, no," Jade chuckled, raising it out of her grasp. "Not until you tell me why you followed Luke. It isn't very ladylike to eavesdrop like that, my dear."

"I…I'm sorry, but I was curious," she gave in, dropping her head in shame. "Luke spent a lot of time with you, so I wanted to see what happened. I just saw you and him outside His Majesty's mansion, that's all." Anise cleared her throat growing serious. "But I also want to tell you I think the Order's been on our trail ever since we left Daath. Mohs may be trying to kidnap Ion again, or is having someone follow us."

"Yes, a soldier must always be on their guard. Not easy going like us." Jade smiled, lowering Tokunaga into Anise's grasp. "My senses picked up some fonon disturbance a good mile behind us since we escaped on the Tartarus by sea. Even now, I feel it a ways out of town. It's been too strong for an Order's spy, most likely one of the god-generals. If it were Sync then Guy's curse slot would be affected. Or Ash, Luke would've heard his voice. The fact we're seeing memory particles from the Radiation Gate leaking out isn't a good sign either…"

"And Colonel, those earthquakes are growing worse, like the land's gonna fall," Anise cried, hugging Tokunaga to her chest like a child. "Ion's been getting sick, the more we're releasing the Daathic seals, too. I'm so worried!"

"But the Fon Master will be okay if he rests," Jade assured her. "You mustn't tell anyone else, even Luke of what you know. We must be on our guard, departing at daybreak as soon as the Tartarus is operational. That way, hopefully we can move before our spy catches on."

"That stupid Mohs, all he wants is his war," Anise growled, kicking up mud and snow on the road.

"Calm down," Jade ordered, grabbing her shirt from the back. "Tonight you and I will take turns keeping watch outside. It's the least we can do to protect ourselves."

TBC

A/N: Guess whose in love with Jade? They won't let things work out so easily between Luke and Jade, yes, its our graceful Rose, Dist! It'll give Jade a real reason to torture him at the inn in Keterberg. I just got to that scene, wayy funny.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: The part about Luke thinking he'll die is inspired by a poem I just read by Lord Alfred Tennyson is called _Tears, Idle Tears_, with some of Luke's thoughts from that poem. Feedback and constructive criticism is welcomed, it encourages me to write more. This is the chapter where we see Jade grow, Jade-centric, my fav.

Chapter 6

* * *

**Anise's POV**

"Umm, yes Colonel, let's keep watch!" I agreed frantically, suppressing a nervous smile.

I couldn't let him know I was a spy for Mohs since he held my poor parents hostage. He would kill them if I disobeyed, and I love them so much, I don't know what I'd do if they died. The real reason I stopped outside Peony's mansion was to gather information on the group's plan for my report to Mohs. The Colonel is always looking ahead planning, so naturally I write based on what he says. He's become like a father to me, even if he doesn't know it, and if he suspects I'm a spy, what if he no longer loves me the way he does now? Okay, that's a strong word, likes, as both a friend and mentor.

When I told Jade I followed Luke cause I was curious about all the time they'd spent together, that's also part of another report I have to gather for Mohs on Jade's relationships as well. Ever since we encountered Dist onboard the Tartarus, he's offered Mohs additional services as a fomicry researcher, in Mohs's goal to create replicas by the hundreds, and in return Mohs forces me to write this extra report on the Colonel. He'll kill both my parents if I don't cooperate with this one too.

It's all cause Dad was so stupid to gamble away our family savings and take a loan from Mohs all this happened, forcing my parents to serve the Order without pay. The monthly wages I receive are garnered by Mohs as well. Jade's been kind enough to lend me his gald repeated times on the course of our adventure, that's what he meant by my allowance. I'm so afraid he'll suspect me. But I must gather information. So I inquired into his romance with Luke as best I could.

"So Colonel, it looks like you'll be marrying Luke instead of me for his money," I teased, tagging behind him on his patrol of Keterberg by its north exit, where children play with snowballs during the day made by those snowball machines, and adults hang out in igloos they've made watching their kids.

"Anise, what a naughty thing to say," he laughed, adjusting his glasses and smiling. "I'm surprised children at your age know of relations between members of the same sex…"

"Oh, I'm not a kid." I grinned wickedly, tugging at his arm. "I just look like a cute little girl on the outside, virtuous to the core and pure of heart, right Colonel?"

He sighed, sitting down on a snow covered bench overlooking the square, just beyond the fancy Keterberg hotel, that area of town illuminated in fancy streetlights, left dim at the square we patrolled lit only by scintillating stars of the northern winter sky. It was so beautiful, a night like this together when I could just spend time with Jade, pretending we were really friends, that I wasn't a spy for Mohs, that'd everything would be okay.

"Yes, I'm sure," Jade replied playfully, wrapping an arm around me on the bench to keep me warm. "I don't think anyone's out there at this time of night, even a spy now. The temperature's dropped drastically since we last detected any possible fonon signatures of intruders nearby."

The person he sensed before was my contact, the one who delivers my reports to Mohs. By approaching Jade and telling him I sensed someone pursuing us, he'd think I was just keeping a lookout, never suspecting where my true motives lied. I'm lucky this time he hasn't caught on. His unbelievable perception sees far into a person's mind, even heart before they themselves are aware. It's as if he possesses some special power knowing things others don't. It's why I get nervous when I have to guess what he's thinking, so I can write Mohs the most accurate report, cause Jade's decisions usually determine our next course of action.

If I'm wrong, even by a hair's breath, Mohs will surely kill my parents. I have nightmares seeing them die before my eyes. It's so scary sometimes I wake up crying. Luke cries in his sleep too every night reliving the agony of Akzeriuth. Sometimes his pain runs so deep he can't even wake up and Tear has to sing her fonic hymns to send him in a deeper sleep so his subconscious mind shuts down. I know if the Colonel can ever open up to Luke and truly help him, maybe poor Luke's nightmares will go away and he'll stop feeling guilty.

It wasn't Luke's fault entirely what happened. Yes, I think he should atone by living in the present, by doing the best he can to prevent more tragedies from happening, but beating himself up like he does, thinking he is less than others just cause he's a replica is sad. I see how Guy tells him over and over but he just won't listen. Did Mohs know all the suffering he caused Luke, through the tragedy at Akzeriuth, by working with Van, all so the Score could come true?

I hate that stupid Score, and those who uphold it cause they think they're bringing humanity some salvation. Mohs is the stupidest of all for following it blindly without thinking. I don't care if Jade says Mohs sees himself as a good follower of the Order for doing his duty. I just know that by obeying Mohs, I'm hurting those closest to me I love, like the Colonel, whose become more like a father to me than my parents. I could never be close to them even if I wanted cause they've been slaves of the Order. Every minute of every day must be spent slaving away for money. I guess that's where my obsession with money came from I'm ashamed to admit. Even that comment I made to the Colonel about him marrying Luke for money came from that pain inside.

"You know in reality that members of the same sex can't really marry, Anise," Jade explained, letting me rest my head on his strong supportive shoulder.

"But I could ask Emperor Peony to amend the laws, right?" I laughed into his ear to keep from shivering into the bitter northern cold.

"Don't embarrass me, please." Jade raised a hand to his forehead in exasperation, sighing, leaning back into me with his head pressed on mine, casting me a tired look with exhaustion weighing his features. He pushed his glasses back up, before lowering his hand, his eyes falling half shut.

"J-just kidding, Colonel." I grinned, taking his hand in mine. "I mean, how do you feel about Luke, anyway?"

His visage rose running over the town square blanketed in snow, a white cover tinted silver from moonlight showering down, a celestial disc suspended in the heavens, made of fonons but glowing like living silver, attended on by her heavenly jewels, the stars twinkling ever brighter beside her even if we humans pass away. Memory particles emitting soft lights: pearlescent pinks, greens, and blues all tinged with white, swirling with many shades within one color rained down in a dance as if they really lived, telling us what they witnessed in humanity's existence as the planet's eternal memory.

I squeezed Jade's hand tighter, this man so like my father I've grown close to.

His gaze fell back to earth, contemplating the igloos tinged in silver, forms of the snow machines children used outlined in cool metallic blue, reflecting the moon's light, and skipping over footprints made in the snow of children running, and crushed snowballs thrown, filled with laughter from the day. Some memory particles evaporating in the atmosphere created an aurora borealis dancing across the sky in transparent, racing rainbows, twisting and turning like streams through heaven, casting back on all the snowy land rainbow hues from their dance.

"…Hmm, he's amazingly dense," he chuckled, with a smirk twisting his lips.

"Is that all?" I murmured, yawning.

The Colonel's smile widened and mischief played in his eyes. A man of few words when it came to anything about himself, I knew he loved Luke deeply even if he didn't know it himself. His love held the key to healing Luke's nightmares, his guilt, his sadness, his answers to questions knowing why he wanted to exist, why was he born and what meaning could he find in life? And knowing all this I'd have to reveal to Moh's messenger tomorrow, I couldn't forgive myself if I hurt the Colonel, or doomed his friendship with Luke. It'd be like destroyed a gorgeous flower that embodies all the world's beauty when all that surrounds it is despair.

"The truth is Anise…I'm a terribly cold person," Jade admitted, masking his regret behind his soft smile to distance me from his true inner self. "What do you think of the snow here?" His sight trailed back to the snow covered land with rainbow colors reflected from the aurora borealis above.

I smiled sadly, clasping my hands to my chest. "It's beautiful, I want to play with it, but its cold cause you can freeze to death if you stay out long enough."

"Indeed, cold like me," he compared metaphorically. "An ordinary child knows snow freezes, so he stops playing in it before he gets frostbite. But a replica is even more helpless than that because he lacks common sense, not even knowing how to walk, to talk when he's first born…" Jade recalled what Guy told him about the time Luke first arrived at Duke Fabre's manor 7 years ago after his birth at Coral Castle.

"So Luke is still like that," I mused, wishing I could somehow help Luke in his struggles, when I'm still embroiled in my own.

* * *

**Luke's POV**

As I bade Jade goodnight leaving him to his devices, my heart sank at the realization Jade might not love me as I did him, weighted down like the boughs of the evergreen trees in Keterberg, laden with snow slipping ever lower like my heart about to break. The over-arching boughs of evergreens lining the slush-soaked avenue I traversed dropped their needle-coated branches with grief as if they expressed my very heart. The nippy air biting my skin and loss of the aurora borealis swept clear from the sky by oncoming clouds: a veritable dreary gray left an emptiness reflecting my soul. Soon, that gloom blocking out all glimmering moonlight and traces of twinkling stars, would unleash its rude torrent, a blizzard within the hour.

The creeping cold crawled beneath my fur-lined hood, past ice crystals formed from my breath, chilling my skin in shudders that made goose-bumps rise in trails down my arms, driving the heat deep down in my limps, heavy with fatigue. I staggered alone drifting past the lavish Keterberg hotel, where a stream of faceless guests, some drunk and carousing melded together like an ugly dream, somewhere beyond in the lobby dwelt my entourage engaged in the revelry. I wanted nothing to do with others' joy alone in my own self-contained universe. None of them understood what it meant to be a replica the shadow of another, rejected by the teacher you thought loved you. And when you think you've found another to fill that void within, he tells he cannot love you as you do him, because just as he can't understand what it means for living things to die, he can't know it means to love.

"Luke!" a low female voice flowed out from the crush of guests at both hotel entrances.

"Leave me alone!" I cried, running past.

A white-gloved hand poked out from between two drunken revelers missing me by an inch, Tear. "Anise was out looking for you. She's worried the god-generals may be tracking us, possibly launching an attack if we're caught alone. And it looks like a storm may be coming. Nephry ordered all inhabitants to remain indoors until after its blown clear over. Luke, did you hear me?" her drifting voice died off between the din of the crowd and our distance.

I had enough gald to stay tonight at the smaller humble in at the lower end of town. Guy would try to cheer me up, Jade make some sarcastic comment, Anise mention my money, Tear inquire into my state, or Natalia would demand incessantly if I dared return to our shared space at the inn Nephry reserved this night. I didn't give a damn if it snowed, or what others thought like my old spoiled self before Akzeriuth. There was much I needed to think about and if the lack of my presence caused hurt feelings, so be it.

"Everyone, seek shelter indoors!" hollered a Malkuth soldier, issuing the governor's recent orders. "You too, boy," he addressed me shuffling past, rounding up stragglers wandering the slush-soaked streets.

"Get lost," I hissed under my breath, slipping on ice not yet melted by the salt soldiers sprinkled before to melt it.

A good 10 minutes lapsed between the time I passed Tear at the inn, seconds after that last lone soldier wandered by, leaving me all alone with not a soul in sight. A bitter whipping wind blown in from the arctic sea howled, whistling past my ears in shrill screams through branches overhead, snapping twigs, beating buildings and rattling loose shingles, some flying off in the street.

Since the weakening of the Sephiroth and spread of the miasma poisoning the land, weather patterns have been irregular, with memory particles leaking from the radiation gate creating that aurora borealis, and now this mounting storm. At this point I had sunken so low in spirits I couldn't care what happened to Auldrant, like its landmasses falling down into the Qliphoth and countless people dying. If I was going to continue to live I needed to find shelter. I had at least that much sense in my current state, but when I tried to stand the ankle I slipped on swelled in pain and I tumbled forward crashing into a snow bank six feet high packed by snow machines plowing through the day before.

"Help!" I cried, wedged far inside the snow bank out of sight of anyone passing by.

My ankle throbbed surging with pain through my leg that burned in searing agony. Broken? Sprained? I couldn't tell. Only the crushing snow froze any feeling I had through my limbs going numb. I still felt my lungs breath, struggling against the pressure of compacted snow jamming me in. My arms failed wildly in vein to burrow me out, find some opening in the snow trapping me, or I might really die of suffocation freezing. As my consciousness flickered out, like a candle in the night before its final glow is extinguished, somewhere from reality I heard the haunts of a voice echoing out.

"Luke, Luke! Where are you?" called Natalia, lost somewhere in time.

_I've let you down, my friend, not even remembering out promise that we'd work together for a world where war doesn't exist, no one has to be poor and suffer, _I wanted to cry recalling her speak with Asch.

"When was he last seen?" Tear inquired, swallowing the fear mounting inside beneath her rational composure.

_I've caused you so much trouble when I promised you I'd change_, I wished I could tell her.

"Peony's mansion, saying he'd head back to the inn to join everyone there," Anise sniffled, bursting into tears. "If he stays out in this weather, he'll die!" she wailed.

_I've barely gotten to know you, Anise. Deep inside you're a lot more mature than I am, with so much I can learn_, I yearned to tell her while I lived.

"I told Luke I'd always be there for him," Guy added, searching with them for me outside.

_Guy, you're the greatest friend I've ever had. How can I thank you for being there?_ I longed to tell him with my breath.

"I am afraid the fault of Luke's disappearance lies with me…" a deep musical voice flowed out lost in quivering tones. Jade.

_Jade, I can't die, not before I understand how you truly feel_. _Do you love me? _I cried out with the last of my waning conscious, as my heart ached and a drowsy numbness dulled my pain, that I might leave the world embalmed in snow.

* * *

**Jade's POV**

Luke's sense of self held itself together with the bond of gossamer threads, no stronger than the bindings of a spider's tremulous web. It faded like dreams upon waking, if ever it existed since knowing he lived as the shadow of another, his sense of self-dying before finding birth in the answers to his questions. I am the cold snow inviting, and he the child lured out to play in all its whitened beauty. My lips must be cold chilling Luke of sweet warmth, when a shudder comes over and he realizes too late the snow he's played in freezes him embalmed inside.

Moments ago the skies were alight with the aura borealis like a galaxy of brilliant color. In the frigid winds straining blew snow from the heavy low sky, down into the street's dim expanse in furious blinding flurries. From behind that came howling winds carrying hard, icy hail. The snow-laden pines groaned when hit, with one branch over us beaten hard snapped falling below.

Guy's bright blue eyes widened, terror sown in their depths as the flying branch hit his forehead. His heroic heart gave way as pain from the impact knocked him unconscious and his writhing eyes flickered shut.

"Luke…" he uttered, his conscious sinking in last thoughts, head ringing with pain, he strained to call his beloved friend's name, worry weighing on his brow in the creases of his face, smoothing out once he lost conscious, his cheek motionless against the ground.

"Guy!" Natalia cried, kneeling beside, her clean white boots soaked in slush and mud, her billowing sleeves dirtied cradling Guy in her arms. "We have to get him to the inn to heal him."

Tear nodded, collected in soldierly composure helped hoist Guy over Natalia's shoulder, until Anise commanded Tokunaga to grow in size to support Guy's limp weight. Stricken with fear quivering, Natalia implored me to find Luke whimpering. I nodded soberly as would Tear, without a word controlled in my thoughts and actions, I focused my fonic sight on a mass of seventh fonons, the fonic signature hopefully Luke's I'd like to find alive.

I don't pray, I count causalities, so if he survives he'll live to fight another day. I learned long ago to stop regarding my soldiers as people, but units grouped as divisions I command. It makes the loss of good men who fight and die for their country, their emperor and beliefs easier, conceiving it an honorable cause to die for one's duty. "He died an honorable death serving Malkuth well," goes the clichéd patriotic speech I always gave in the hopes of comforting loved ones.

It's a ritual we learn in Malkuth's military academy, as Oracle Knights like Tear do in the Order to train out our emotions, when confronting loved ones of the deceased soldier on those awful heart wrenching occasions. I've given that speech so many times to the loved ones of soldiers lost in the Hod War and the Tartarus's crew who perished when the god-generals first attacked, I've almost lost all feeling when I recite that speech devoid of sense.

This abysmal night reminds me of the one I lost dear Nebilim long ago, in the aura borealis followed by storm clouds shrouding the starry sky, and a terrible blizzard falling. If I was a normal human being, how Nephry would define normal, maybe I'd feel some haunting apprehension, a similar fate might befall poor Luke of vanishing on this dreary night, when arctic winds from the sea howl through restless pines, and all the town seeks solace.

The hale blew hard, wind carrying it moaned in many voices, gloomy shadows dancing on white snowy patches, puffing up loose freshly fallen flakes over hardened snow banks in compact frozen mounds, some muddied, partly melted from salt sprinkled on the road that day. The cloudy barrier of hale mixed with snow did much to obscure my sight with a visibility of a foot, leaving me alone to search for Luke. Natalia and Tear tended to Guy's wounds, and Anise helped the soldiers round up any remaining people to be brought indoors to safety.

With my fonic sight, I detected a mass of seventh fonons through scudding snow and rainy hail ahead, spotting a limp body curled as if in prayer, its chin tucked in on its breast, slumbering as if he listened to the earth herself, imprisoned deep in an embankment of snow. My long tapered fingers dug in, soaking my gloved arms in snow melted from bodily heat, while unearthing the victim swift and quick. Rescuing what I hope is Luke calls to mind the time Guy returned for Luke at Aramis Spring, after the fall of Akzeriuth only this time, it was me who pursued Luke in Guy's stead.

_I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, I'm scared_, cried Luke unconscious, imprisoned in the bank just inches from my hands. _I thought by dying if I could bring back the people of Akzeriuth, it would be worth it as a way to atone for my sins, but dying here does me no good! Just when I think my life might have a purpose, be worth living cause I've found someone I love, it's all about to end, oh sweet existence…_

"Hold on, Luke!" I cried, squinting in the snow that flashed white from a lone streetlamp hissing before a flying branch knocked it out, dying in darkness that shadowed the town like some low heavy blanket, condensing into a cold forbidding element against my body the quicker it labored and dug.

His face was colorless like the withered moon from his blood frozen slowly, flaming hair once bright now darkened to lifeless scarlet.

_Tears, tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, arising from the depths of some divine despair_, thought Luke unconscious in prayer. _So afraid am I to die, to loose you, Jade, my soul… _

Tears rose from his heart, gathering in his eyes, trickling out from shut lids in wet tracks down his face, though he lay unconscious in my arms freed from that snowy prison.

"I'll remember your kisses after death, sweet as those hopes I fancied, that I might find some purpose in life on your lips deep as love," Luke murmured, still unconscious, his mind lost in a far away place as the normal waking Luke had no aptitude for language, much less poetry in his saner dimwit state.

To his dying ears and eyes I called, "Get a hold," shaking him hard and firm.

"…Jade?" his tremulous voice cried out in low, flickering tones with the remnants of warmth, of the flame of life barely burning through.

His faded conscious, the syllables of my name soft and brief, caught in his throat, a strained whisper above the wind told had he stayed a minute longer, his life might truly have ceased to be. The tides of conscious returned, enough to tell him he lived, he'd be okay, I was here and I saved him.

"What happened?" he whispered, a tinge of color returning to his face as pink in his cheeks and nose from blood rushing beneath his throbbing skin.

"It seems, Luke, you sprained your ankle, tripped and lost conscious trapped in the snow Luke just as a storm blew in," I explained, carrying him in the simpler inn at the lower end of town, the nearest shelter I could treat him.

"How stupid I am, causing trouble like—"

I silenced him with a kiss on the lips, hissing, "If you complain again like before, I'll regret having saved you," with my clear-cut cynicism biting in.

The blizzard seemed to weaken in the night wind sighing, as I kicked open the door to the quaint, homely inn, a tiny lodging at the southern end of town humbler travelers often stayed at unlike the upscale Keterberg Inn. The innkeeper gasped from behind the small lobby counter, running for gels and other medicinal remedies from the drug store a building over.

Luke's warm burning fingers hooked into the edge of my uniform across my chest, its inner facing shown as it fell partly unbuttoned and open, grazing Luke's face within satin lining the inside. He coughed, his fingers gripping tighter as if in death's throes as I laid him on a couch in the lobby, feeling his life slowly returning. It ebbed so long, nearly lost in the freezing cold it's any wonder he's alive.

"I'm sorry, I really was stupid, not thinking when I ran…" Luke sniffled. His flaming hair pillowed in fiery strands against the cushioned couch showed that signs of life returned in his thick vibrant locks, no longer dulled and dark, in the dim interior light.

"All I could think of is what I was feeling when you said to me, Jade, 'even though you say you love me and truly mean it, I fear I'll never be able to do the same,' I was so sad I just ran, even ignoring Tear when she warned about the weather outside the expensive Keterberg Inn," Luke sighed, loosening his grasp on my uniform a hair's breath, expressing himself soulfully through words he nearly choked on.

If I were in any other situation, I'd be inclined to smirk making some sarcastic comment like, _what fervor what passion, expressing your love, dear Luke_. However, he nearly lost his life because my words crushed him hard when I said, _that is why I called you out here to tell you, perhaps a romantic relationship with me may not…work, _his world fell apart just as it did at Akzeriuth.

He's a child that knows so little, only seven years old, a replica, lacking true parents and family while his original lives, thinking his life is worth less than others cause he sees himself only as a shadow, this Luke. In all my life and years spent observing human beings, I can see now how his extreme vulnerably found a way past my icy defenses, and my heart I thought died deep in the depths of despair. In ancient Ispanian Luke means 'light of the sacred flame,' a flame that perhaps gives hope to those in whom its died.

"I can understand if you hate me, Luke," I admitted, treating his sprained ankle with a gel the innkeeper brought me. "I told Anise this, and now you, that I'm truly a cold person, that's why one's hate makes perfect sense…"

"No, Jade, I don't hate you, but you sure as hell frustrate me," Luke chuckled, hoisting himself on one arm feeling better from the gel's effects sinking in.

"Oh, when you were unconscious, I thought perhaps you'd grown smarter," I jested, rubbing the last of the gel into his healing ankle. "I believe you recited poetry like some melodramatic (think Shakespearean) actor on stage proclaiming, 'I'll remember your kisses after death, sweet as those hopes I fancied, that I might find some purpose in life on your lips deep as love,' so deep in feeling and fervor, I cried on the inside seeing how _touched _you felt."

As I said this I sprang to my feet bowing as if I offered my appreciation for a standing ovation, after having given a dramatic soliloquy on stage like _Queen's Mabs_ wondrous speech in Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_. I hate those forms of melodrama I really do, finding it all the more amusing when Luke acts like that in life. Maybe I should have been an actor, instead of a soldier, dear reader.

"You bastard, you have the nerve to say that when I nearly died," Luke jumped up, grabbing my collar, with a wicked grin twisting his mouth. "I'm sure your Malkuth military uniform is air-conditioned as well as heated, so I think you should just take it off right now for everyone here to see."

I blushed! Had he no shame undressing a grown man, a soldier in his mid thirties nearing middle age!?

"Yeah, take it off!" Luke cheered, pulling at my half opened uniform with buttons hanging out. "S-shit!" he howled, bounding back on the couch from his foot.

"The gel's effect hasn't fully healed," I chuckled, bending down to see his hurt ankle. "Perhaps I should of told you, its an experimental I made, so if you're lucky your ankle will get better, hopefully not worse, it its not the poisoned gel I gave…"

His face twisted in shock with a sweat drop by his head.

"I'm just kidding. Did you'd really think I'd experiment on a living subject like yourself?" I smiled, stifling a laugh behind the flat of my hand to my mouth. "Although I wish I could…" I added offhandedly, with that soft disarming smile.

"And I thought you were serious about helping me," he sighed again, falling back on the couch.

"In truth, that is really quite a severe sprain you have," I observed, running my hand over the tender flesh above his foot for a closer look, pulling off his shoe and rolling up his pants. "You should be lucky, Luke, it's not broken. Someone will have to carry you for a few days until it fully heals."

"You." Luke lurched up, wincing in pain, his burning emerald eyes fixated on my entirety. "I mean, Jade, I would appreciate it," he corrected, chiding himself.

He requested instead of demanded. I must admit he's truly grown not the same spoiled brat I first met. I can say he's really a friend, or companion like the others. For the first time I think an honest sincere smile spread over my face at his growth, at the wonderful change I see.

"Jade, I can't believe it, I think you're really…" Luke paused, his bright green eyes wide with wonder, sparkling. "…Smiling," he finished almost tear eyed at my expression.

I cleared my throat slipping back behind my cold expressionless mask. "Are…are you serious?" I exclaimed in surprise, mingled with some hint of vexation in my startled, low reply.

"Okay, maybe you really didn't…" Luke insisted, hiding the vestiges of a smile in his pink lips curving out. He struggled to sit up, holding out his swollen ankle to alleviate the pain, managing to clasp one of my hands. "But you saved me, you came for me just like Guy did after Akzeriuth."

I closed my eyes, sighing, squeezing his hand in mine, feeling the pulse beneath separated only by my gloves. "Your skills have improved to some degree…making you a more essential fighter, at least a little compared to when we first met," I acknowledged with some reluctance.

"Coming from you, that's a compliment," Luke laughed, drawing his arms around me. "Ouch," he whimpered, his dangling foot hitting my side.

"You really should rest, dear. I suppose I can carry you to a bed, if my old aching bones hold out," I mumbled, lazily drawing his weight off the couch against my body in my arms.

I pretended to groan, straining my old aching muscles carrying him in to a bed. Despite the pain of his half healed ankle, with the gel doing all it could, he broke out into a sweet boyish smile, expressing the innocence of his tender, budding age. His youth gave him excitement, a passion many including myself loose with age. Perhaps he was right when he said, _maybe you're right, Jade. But I believe people can change, even though you tell me you can't feel for me what I do for you. You said, Jade, you learned a lot by watching me. If there's anything you've realized, I want you to know people can change, even you._

_Because in the time I've known you, you've changed, even if you don't realize it yourself_, Luke had said, placing his hand on my beating heart back out Peony's mansion under the aura borealis dancing in the sky.

Perhaps the memory particles in the sky at that time danced for Luke in that brilliant display of light, telling me change is really possible.

_I'll believe when I see it, but until then, I've decided not to give up on you, dear Luke, _I said inwardly to him in my heart, planting a kiss on his forehead, tucking him in bed, applying another gel to his swollen ankle so hopefully it healed further by the time he awoke in morning.

TBC

* * *

A/N: The famitsu interview I read said Luke has purity because he's a replica, that he's really a gentle person who has a hard time expressing himself. It also says Jade was really critical of him at that point, that Jade doesn't really show what he has in his heart toward Luke, but that a part of him is saved by Luke's presence and "cured." In the game, when Jade says he no longer realizes what it means for living things to die, I think of a quote by Norman Cousins which says, "death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live," which I discovered in Eucharion's Abyss fic _A Two Way Street_. To me that quote embodies the theme of Luke and Jade's relationship, that Luke's ability to heal can help Jade realize Nebilim's death wasn't the greatest loss in his life, but what happened inside his heart, that Luke will be able to heal that part of Jade in the course of their relationship, yaoi from my point of view That went kind of deep but explains the theme in my fic.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: This is a rather long chapter and I apologize if the romance building between Luke and Jade is slow, but I'm trying to build a relationship between them in as much of the context of the game as I can, and Jade's a distant person. I hope one day to be a professional writer, writing historical naval fiction from the eighteenth century, as I'm a history buff, but I don't think I'm good at writing my own stuff. Anyway, for all those who've read, thank you. I'm always trying to improve my stuff, so I love hearing feedback and suggestions.

* * *

Chapter 7

**Jade's POV**

As Luke drifted off to sleep, I recovered my composure and good spirits, inhaling the exquisite scent of pinewood in the timbers of Luke's bed, and planks constructing the walls, all made from the finest pines, with a few drops of sap dripping down the walls in odd nooks and crannies, giving the cozy room a fragrant woody air one smells in the pine forests I played outside Keterberg during my youth. One simple poignant scent called to mind those days, dwelling on my inner child in Luke contently asleep. This is indeed the first time during our journey since the tragedy of Akzeriuth, Luke slept soundly swaddled in clean linen sheets, pooled around his form, curled up on his side, with his head tucked in resting on his breast, and hands clasped over his heart like an angel in prayer.

Sinking deep in the sleep of midnight, exhausted from the day's toil, slumbered sweetly wrapped in dreams, woven from its adventure, Luke relived our intimacy with a smile crossing his lips, parted slightly as his breath rose and fell, in gentle measured sighs murmuring soft nothings.

"Jade, thank you…" his quivering breath whispered in sleep. "For being there, even though I don't really have a family…"

"You still lack confidence. Is this low self esteem symptomatic of all replicas?" I asked sitting down on the bed crossing my arms. "Even though Ion has yet to tell everyone he's a replica himself, I see in him the same lack of self worth evident in you Luke, that he's a replacement whose life holds no inherent value. I understand now why on the deepest level fomicry is unethical, because those born from it feel they have no soul…"

What does it mean to think you have a soul that you exist? Those philosophical questions having no clear scientific answer, existing beyond the physical, in the realms of the subconscious I consider useless, as I don't believe in faith, miracles or fate. Perhaps the reason the Score holds power over people's minds is because it fills in their hearts that existential anxiety I see so strongly driving Luke. He seems to embrace it with all his being since he was born outside the Score, proof enough his existence is some twist of fate, beyond time and space that confines us ordinary humans.

Then is it fate possibly that led me to create fomicry, giving birth to Luke? He might believe so, but I see it as the simple fact of the foolishness of my youth, in conceiving life can be revived through advancements in science. After all, what was the difference in restructuring an inanimate object and living organism if the soul didn't really exist? Professor Nebililm told me the soul inside a creature is what gives it life, distinguishing it from animate things. Only I realized that too late when her replica arose in a crazed, deranged state living only to kill.

_Professor Nebilim, you're back, I missed you so much_, I cried to her when her replica arose from her corpse atop a bank of firm white snow, under a glittering a glittering pine tree nestled by its roots, beneath the sky a blanketed in stars. It's my fault I used the seventh fonon out of curiosity and it went out of control, setting your house afire killing you. But now that you're back, you'll forgive me, won't you, Professor? I'm so sorry I hurt you!

_Jade, look out, something's not right,_ gasped Saphir, screaming in terror.

_Professor,_ I cried again, running to embrace her groaning, savage form.

Her wild eyes burned, shaggy hair in ropelike coils twisted about her limbs, legs propelling her as if her entire body became one giant coil knocking me to the ground.

_You didn't make me right. Was I that bad of a teacher you didn't love me, _she howled pinning me to the ground.

_Of course we love you. Don't you remember us, Professor?_ Saphir at this point burst into tears, trying to pull her off. _You've been the mother we never had. Please don't say that!_

_Lies, foolish kids,_ Nebilim hissed, slashing at my chest.

I realized at this point whatever memories her replica possessed deteriorated by the second as her cellular structure broke down lacking seventh fonons. That rapid mental instability led to a complete reversal of her loving self, a compassionate being whose heart embraced all she healed, awakening the humanity I lost. Her gentle guidance revealed it's the soul inside a creature that makes it alive. But her replica had no soul, only an empty well of darkness I gazed in as her claws tore with hate.

_You didn't make me perfect, cause I wasn't good enough, Jade_, _that's how awful a teacher I was, wasn't I?_ Nebilim laughed madly rolling off onto the blood stained snow beside me. _I saved your sight after you applied fonic artes nearly going blind. I convinced the town you weren't the ones that killed those monsters for fun, so people might accept you, even your own sister. But none of this matters now since you've discarded me._

_Professor, stop! Jade,_ cried Sephir, dashing to my side. _Don't die. You're my only friend._

_I won't. But we must kill her, we have no choice, _I groaned, barely staying conscious from the loss of blood weakening my battered body.

She had cut me deep and hard, a gash across my chest from shoulder to stomach. I had to attack the professor I loved so dearly if I had any chance to live. I focused the fonons in my arm fused to my spear inside, materializing it as I aimed for Nebilim plunging my weapon through. I loved her so much, my light and mother like Auldrant herself. I killed her before, now I was to do it again in my spear biting her flesh.

_I knew it, ungrateful child,_ she howled in pain recoiling from the blow. _Now you try to kill me. You really don't appreciate those who love you. For all that I've given you, seeing now that this imperfect form is all you've given me, I can't forgive you._

The rapid deterioration of the cells in her brain reached its final stage. She shuddered loosing what memories remained of her original self, like shadows dying in light, when whatever remained of Professor Nebilim's original called out from the depths of her heart, _Jade, I love you, you were always the son I never had. Saphir too. _

_If those memories aren't me, who am I?_ Nebilim questioned, loosing the remnants of her original, the flicker of a flame that existed no more. _If you don't die, I'll be tortured by those memories forever. Goodbye, dear Jade…_

Just as she loomed over to finish me Saphir attacked blasting her with a powerful arte. She vanished in the night and that was the last I saw of Nebilim's replica, after she killed many fonists seeking the components of Shadow and Rem to complete herself, becoming 'perfect.' I wanted to beg her forgiveness so I might feel better. But any lingering memories she had faded vanished before I could say, _but now that you're back, you'll forgive me, won't you, Professor? I'm so sorry I hurt you _perhaps she could of forgiven me in her heart.

But replicas have no memory of the past, thus a replica cannot forgive me. I've lived the rest of my life since that day pained by the sins of my past, the greatest sin not understanding the significance between life and death. I thought I understood when Nebilim said, _living creatures, human beings like you and me have souls. That's what makes us alive, including those monsters too. That's why killing them is wrong, dear boy_.

At the time of her death I realized I understood her words only with my head, never my heart though I thought I did. The moment her life flickered out, something in Sephir died too. The awkward, shy boy I grew close to became this maddened fool bent only on resurrecting Nebilim, to bring back the days of their friendship, trapped in a dream of the past, he joined the Order as one of Van's generals seeking her replica data. It's partly my fault I broke his heart by killing Nebilim, making him what he was.

I suppose since then I grew to be a person embracing extreme logic, grounded strictly in science, forsaking any remnants of religion I clung including fate, that perhaps things were meant to happen, miracles that the impossible comes true, or faith in believing in the unseen through experience gaining belief. None of that, encompassing the soul's existence, knowing the meaning of life really mattered. I became a soldier for my emperor and childhood friend, who accepted me, willing to lie down my life in the name of duty.

My emotions died, numbing me so deep inside, a soldier was a fitting profession. I showed no feeling, signs of weakness to the enemy, staying cool in dangerous situations, willing to kill an enemy if necessary for the sake of my mission. Of course, I thought my life would meander down this path until I met him.

Although a replica, he's like a small child so pure and honest in feeling. Something inside me has indeed changed since we met, when saying _in the time I've known you, you've changed, even if you don't realize it yourself_, he was right, as if the Light of the Sacred Flame blazing inside him reached out and touched my dying, numbed heart. It seems like he's the one saving a part of me I can't understand has died, because I've been like this so long.

I saw so much of his purity in Nebilim it pained me, his presence tapping an inner wellspring of feeling within, crying out to escape all the mental dams I constructed those years, now caged in the hell of my own creation. Wandering in darkness finding not a glimpse of hope, I cried on the inside, smiling outside, except now my feelings crashing out rose from my heart, gathering in my eyes swimming with tears I blinked batting back, because a soldier can't feel pain showing the enemy his weakness, except one trickling down in salty rivulets spilling free, the light dancing in its depths like a sparkling diamond, a bittersweet reminder my humanity lives on trapped deep in the depths of my subconscious, no matter how cold I profess myself to be.

I scoffed at the wet tracks that rolled down my face, wiping away that last vestige of visible humanity from the entire world to see. Yet it escaped me trickling down on Luke's cheek, staining the suntanned skin of his round boyish boy with pain, melting into his inner most heart, where the nightmares from Akzeriuth once plagued him, they told him of the grief I harbored within.

"Jade, were you…crying?" Luke whispered softly, rising up, wrapping his languorous arm around me.

"Perhaps on the inside for the loss of my artes from that fon slot seal, which I'm still undoing. The passion you take concerning my state almost pains me," I replied coolly, shrugging his arm off with a half smile fixed on my face.

"You lie so well, if I didn't know you, I'd believe you," Luke sighed twisting his hand around the arm I shrugged him off with. "If you're hurt, it's okay. I won't tell anyone, I promise, just like the time Nephry told me about your past."

"You almost told Mieu," I countered, glancing up. "And besides, I'm sure what you felt hitting your face was just water from a leak in the ceiling, Luke."

He frowned, scanning up above. "I don't see anything, it looks okay to me," he murmured half absently.

I laughed taking him in my arms. He didn't realize how fond of him I'd grown, that the purity I see in him reminding me of Nebilim is what made me cry, even if a single tear escaped me. In one moment I remembered everything, wishing that as a replica Luke could forgive me. If one replica could forgive me in place of another, would it be receiving a form of forgiveness for the sins of my past?

That night for the first time since we met Luke slept peacefully without nightmares. It relieved me to see at last the hell haunting him subsided, at least for now, though his self worth continues to plague him. If I hadn't buried the pains of Nebilim's loss deep down inside me, I wondered if I'd relive the pain recurring in nightmares as Luke did Akzeriuth. It felt so strange for that single moment emotion welled up within me. Perhaps that was the change in me Luke saw I never realized till now.

* * *

**Anise's POV**

That night I didn't sleep well at all haunted by nightmares of my parents' death if Mohs dared killed them.

_You've been a bad girl_, _Anise,_ scolded Mohs in my dream in Daath's cathedral, the chapel with the giant stained glass, where an execution was held, crushed tight with Oracle Soldiers holding blades to my parents_. All I ever wanted was the Score to come true, so humanity would be saved. But you've allied yourself with those false prophets, leaving me no choice but to take your parents hostage, so you'll cooperate in helping me bring humanity salvation. You fool, those false prophets succeeded and now all humanity is doomed. You should taste the pain the rest of humanity feels at death when the end draws nigh. Holy knights of Lorelei, kill them! _

"Mom, Dad! Nooo!" I cried, tossing and turning in sleep.

_Anise, we love you. You did what was right in helping your friends_, Pamela and Oliver said with their last words, smiling as if death didn't even exist.

A flood of crimson left me in tears, convulsing in pain from the loss. As they smiled their heads went flying off and blood spurted up where the Oracle Knights' blades cut through. It looked so real I felt as if I saw them die before my eyes, the trauma etched in my memory forever, just as the moment Luke saw that poor boy sink into the miasma crying, _Mommy, Daddy_, when Tear and Natalia tried to save him and poor Luke reached out in pain.

Experiencing this grief made me feel compassion for Luke at a deeper level. I abandoned him at a time when his soul was lost in the dark. Who can understand the guilt he suffers of taking so many lives? Can the sin of taking human life ever be atoned for? I know the Colonel suffers some guilt from an event in his past, and the pain both he and Luke feel have drawn them closer together.

The Colonel is a dear father, Luke's like an older brother I always wanted but never had, no matter how much I tease him about marrying him. Their bond has helped create a sense of family I've yearned for since separation from my parents. I was blackmailed into going on this journey as Moh's spy. Protecting Ion was only part of it. But I never imagined finding the feel of family I lost.

Even if I've acted cheery I was always scared inside, for my parents' lives that if they died because of me I could never forgive myself. Even imagining the guilt Luke suffers from makes me tremble in sleep. My body may be physically resting rejuvenating itself, but my mind always races during sleep. Why do people associate peace with sleep, even death when they say 'rest in peace' on graves? Though I'm an Oracle Knight, a religious soldier, I'm cynical about what in the Score and Order teaches, because it controls people instead of saving them, inventing legends that Yulia heard the voice of Lorelei seven days after she was born, hearing the memory of the void that returned to the world of man, and by listening to that memory in the Score, everlasting happiness will be gained in this life and salvation in the next in the paradise of Elderant after death.

Myths are invented about heroes and kings too, with the Order saying Lorelei bestowed its power, a myth Luke wanted to believe when Van said he'd become a hero saving Akzeriuth using hyper-resonance. Much how Van manipulated Luke into believing his words would lead Luke to happiness the Order does the same with its myths of Yulia and the Score inscribed on the five great monuments in Daath as fact, when in reality history and myth are intertwined, to those who believe in the Score it's absolute truth. If there's no true way to separate fact from fiction, why do people choose to believe even if it can't be proven true?

"Anise, Anise, wake up," a silky voice lilted over my shoulder, its owners reaching deep inside me, pulling me out of the darkness as Jade did to Luke in the snow.

My heart beat so felt asleep I felt I'd truly explode until his voice echoed in, its smooth baritone soothing to my ears, the voice of a friend who knew my pain, an older brother like Luke. My eyes fluttered open with nightmares clouding their mist, of blood splattering when I dared open them, except Guy pulled me out so I might awaken unscathed.

Feeling the nightmares chased away my vision cleared in the darkness, taking in silver moonbeams that washed the room in silver through an open window, bathing my friends in soft dreamy light cloaking them in sleep. The room Nephry reserved with its gilded chairs, fine chandelier crowned in gold, ornaments above the fireplace decked in silver, and various tapestries adorning the walls intricately woven seemed to me a dream, in which I was a princess and Guy a knight beside me. I suppose I shouldn't criticize the followers of Lorelei for believing myth is truth, when here I am weaving my own tales in the same imaginative trappings.

"Are you okay? You were crying out for your mom and dad. Pamela and Oliver looked well the last time we saw them in Daath," Guy explained gently, kneeling by my bedside.

I nodded, sitting up, forcing myself to wear a pleasant smile, though not as well as the Colonel. I had much to learn if I was to hide my feelings from others. "Just fine, don't you worry, my Count Gailardios," I piped, taking his arm in my hands.

"Hey Anise, I know when things bother you. You're my friend, like Tear, Natalia, Luke, and even Jade though he pretends to act indifferent," Guy sighed, pulling me in a hug. "Ever since that fon slot curse Sync placed on me, I've had nightmares too, seeing blood every night, and dead bodies piled on me as a child. Then I wake up crying cause the pains too much, missing some lapse in my memory. At other times a seething rage builds up in me wanting to kill Luke, even though I love him when Sync gets near me, and the curse takes full control. It's not Luke but something his father Duke Fabre did that hurts deep down inside, knowing he took away everything I loved, laughing while he did it. I began to live yearning only for revenge along with Van for the destruction of Hod, but when I first arrived at the Fabre manor, seeing this young Luke who could barely walk, not even talk, somewhere inside my hated melted away, though it still hurts…"

Guy poured out his heart to me. He too, was suffering inside from some pain in the past, as I hurt in the present.

"Luke's very special, the most important person in my life who changed me. I'd be living controlled by hate like Van, if it weren't for Luke's affection," Guy confessed, sentiment swimming in his beautiful blue eyes, expressed in his delicate though weather beaten features.

"You're like his father, aren't you, Guy? It seems his real father, or his replica's, Duke Fabre doesn't really care, or he's just cold," I sighed, burying my head in Guy's supportive chest. "Your phobia, you aren't afraid of touching me?"

Guy laughed, his sweet smile wiping away my pain. "Well, when I see someone's in need, my fear seems to disappear." His gaze darted to Natalia and Tear slumbering a few beds over. "Thanks to their healing my head wound is gone. I was really worried about Luke before in that blizzard, but I'm glad the Colonel saved him when I couldn't."

"Yeah, the Colonel really cares about him, even if he hides it," I added, releasing Guy and staring out the window on this calm lovely night after the blizzard abated. "I joked with him before about marrying Luke instead of me for his money, hehe." I pointed to myself grinning as I turned to face Guy. "Then I suggested Emperor Peony could change the laws so guys could marry. When I did, I saw how embarrassed the Colonel got, and you know he's hardly embarrassed. You know what that means?" I hinted, clasping my hands in wonder.

A grin broke over Guy's face outlined in silvery moonlight. "He likes him, haha. I knew it back at the Fourth Monument Hill outside Daath, when Luke came to me, asking me what he should do about Jade."

"The two of you, alone?" I gasped, my eyes going wide with surprise. "Two guys that happen to be friends, ooooww, did you give Luke a smoochie-smooch, hehe?"

"Anise!" he cried, his face going beet-red. "Well yes, I mean no, I showed him what to do what he wanted to approach Jade and…"

"And what? Confess his feelings of love?" I grinned wickedly, leaning in towards Guy, who quivered with his phobia-kicking in. "You and Luke, how sweet, so how far did you go, Guy? To what base?"

His face turned a brighter shade red, so bright it might burst from the blood bursting through.

"I won't tease Luke if you tell me," I jested, looming an inch closer to poor Guy shaking more.

"S….second…" he stammered, "meaning we touched each other, well he to me, down uh…_there."_ He broke into a sweat nearly feinting.

"O…okay, I…I'm sorry," I apologized, turning away. "I didn't mean to ask like that."

My head sank in shame as I turned towards the window, thinking that on beautiful like nights like this a guy and girl held hands, when he confessed his love to her. "No one's ever told me about those things and I'm…curious."

Guy chuckled gently, squeezing me on the shoulder. "I understand. Luke came to me with the same concerns. Just don't tell anyone I said that, okay? Luke doesn't have much confidence in himself and I don't want to see him hurt."

"You really love him, don't you?" I observed, smiling, seeing the same fatherly bond he had with Luke I shared with the Colonel.

Guy nodded, his gaze lost in the landscape of Keterberg outside the window clothed I snow, tinted silver and blue from the moon glowing above. "Except I'm worried about him with Jade." Fear tinged his voice gone beneath the wind whispering through the trees outside, rustling their leaves, shaken free from some snow falling. "Because the Colonel is the type of guy who doesn't let people get close. I thought you knew him but I can tell he's distant even with you, Anise. You know how innocent Luke is, and how much he expects. I just don't know if Jade can give him what he wants…" He trailed off in a sigh drawing his gaze sullenly in.

I swallowed feeling a lump in my throat, tightening my hold on Guy's hand over my shoulder. "Do you think…" I hesitated, fixating my sight on his face. "We could do something, Guy?"

His gaze intensified meeting mine.

"Well, I've heard His Majesty is a cool guy, who likes cute girls like me, so when we meet him in Grand Chokma I could ask him to set Luke and the Colonel up on a date. How's that?" I grinned, clasping Guy's hands in mine.

"W-what!?" Guy's eyes went wide when he gasped. "Are you crazy, Anise? This is an emperor, besides don't tell me your planning to marry him."

"Tee hehe," I giggled. "Of course, he's a handsome man, at least I've seen in pictures."

I really love the Colonel I want what's best for his happiness. Even if he doesn't realize it I think a relationship with Luke will really help him grow. I'm afraid something will happen to their bond in our all movements I have to report to Mohs. I know Dist too has something against Jade. Perhaps he wants revenge for something that happened in the past. If I can help Jade and Luke strengthen their bond, it's the least I can do for Jade to show him how I feel. He's the first real sense of family I felt since starting our adventure, our bond giving me strength when I have those nightmares of Mohs killing my parents and the pain I feel inside of betraying those I love.

"I think it'd be good for the Colonel and Luke to get to know one another," I added, breathing a sight of relief. At least Guy didn't peer into people's minds like Jade. "So try to encourage Luke before we get to Grand Chokma."

* * *

**Jade's POV**

That morning at Keterberg Port I noticed Anise's odd behavior. The glint of sunlight rendered weak from hitting polar latitudes, caught nervously on Anise's pink uniform flapping frantically in the winter wind with the cold briny air nipping at her legs, making her shiver as she darted behind the alley of warehouses at port, and suspecting I followed. Her thin sturdy legs carried her behind a pile of crates, of which I hid facing the port. She huffed catching her breath, another sign her nerves were further wrecked.

"Oh, he's supposed to be here. If I'm away too long, the Colonel will get suspicious," she muttered, tapping her foot against the stack of crates that separated us by less than three feet.

"Just wait and you shall hear my beautiful name," an effeminate male voice proclaimed in haughty tones. "I apologize that you must keep those ignorant savages, oh how rude of me, I mean the Jade gang waiting. A troublesome breakout of acne ruined my most lovely complexion and I had to spend extra time this morning using makeup to cover it."

He sighed pretending to swoon like a maid. "I must tell you, its so hard being the most graceful and gorgeous of those god-generals."

Ah, Dist the Runny, to have him of all people, I meaning charming pet acting as a liaison for Anise with Mohs. She has my deepest human sympathy dealing with Dist. I did once care for him as my friend before Nebilim's death. But from her loss he plunged deep into a state of delusion, which drove us further apart. He's conceived he exists in some imaginary world that Nebilim might return. I'm guilty to some extent having caused his current condition due to Nebilim's death, but I gave up longing for the old Dist who was once my friend.

Dist continued creating replicas after the Hod war, seeking Nebilim's replica data from Van who withheld to keep Dist at his side. For all the abuses of fomicry he's created, I cannot forgive to this day.

"Now dear, tell me what Mohs wants to know on the Jade's gangs progress," coaxed Dist with a subtle wave of his hand, apparently not in his chair as not to draw attention.

"We'll be departing for Grand Chokma soon, docking by Rotelro Bridge cause the capital's defenses are fortified, at least that's the Colonel's…plan," Anise's last word rang bitterly with pain, choked deep in her trembling throat from her little body shaking. _Colonel, I'm sorry, please forgive me but Mohs will kill my parents. I'm such a rotten girl and spineless knight who can't even honor our friendship. _

I sensed acutely her inner pain from the writhing tone in her voice.

"Very good!" rejoiced Dist, prancing about. "Is there anyone that duplicitous snake Jade seems particular close to?"

Anise froze feeling her throat tighten.

"That means yes, well speak, or I'll tell Mohs you're betraying us," the god-general hissed, looming over her.

"Luke…" she sniffled, crying his name out from her throat. _Oh, Colonel, you have every right to hate me. But I'm so scared for my parents. _

"Hmm, that replica useless to Van. So he's fallen for a replica of all people, how interesting, Jade," Dist laughed half to himself doubling over. "You killed Professor Nebilim and you won't even try to bring her back. That really broke my heart Jade. Now, you won't even be my friend. I'll make you taste the same pain I have."

Anise quivered in Dist's wake as he scurried off to reconnoiter with the other god-generals, probably on another military vessel belonging to Daath moored just a short distance from the Tartarus out on the dock. As she dashed out greeting everyone as if nothing happened, I came up behind beginning casually, "Well, hello Anise, out for a stroll weren't you?"

"No…it's nothing, Colonel," she stuttered. "I was just out getting supplies for our trip."

"But the shops are that way," I pointed, cocking my head towards the inn and stores to our left instead of behind.

"Oh, well I just got lost." Anise shrugged, then waved to Luke and the others approaching." Now, let's get going, everyone! It's time to meet His Imperial Majesty and put a stop to this war," she piped, forcing herself to wear a smile I saw right through to her pain churning inside.

"If you keep acting like that, I'll have no choice but to ask you what's going on," I sighed, adjusting my glasses tiredly.

The Tarturus's massive sails billowed out catching the wind's briny breath, its engines now free of miasma roared wildly, propelling us forward out of the harbor, the ship's bow racing on ahead in a torrent of white water surging around her hull, closing in a foamy trail that stretched out like a comet's tail leaving eddies in her wake. I felt myself come alive in her shivering sails, creaking hull and triumphant cries propelling us far out of the arctic seas down south to warmer waters, where three hundred and sixty degrees of cobalt blue ocean spanned the arcing horizon, kissing the azure sky broken only by patches of cloud sailing overhead, a few rare white ones, mostly slivers of languorous gray.

"It's so beautiful, " murmured a dreamy voice lost in the scene's romantic beauty. "The last time I was here Van showed me how to use my hyper-resonance, saying I'd become a great hero. You seem to be thinking of things too, Jade."

I turned around on the deck, just the two of us alone by the ship's bow as she raced on ahead through calm, tranquil waters, leaving the navigation and manning of the ship to Guy who assisted the others in the cockpit up above. A gentle smile crossed my face and I couldn't help but sigh. I suppose some icy layer surrounding my heart did melt but I still live lacking feeling.

"Hello, Luke, indeed I am," I returned softly, gazing back out at the scene.

"Don't you find it hard being alone like this?" Luke asked, leaning on the rail of the bow with me, rocking with me as the ship raced, ahead rising and falling in her usual groaning rhythm.

"I get tired babysitting everyone, especially a certain obtuse child, and at my age I'm getting so frail I fear I may collapse on this very should he cause me more trouble." I grabbed the rail pretending to falter. "So I enjoy a nice break out here alone."

"You…you," Luke grumbled, frowning. "Why'd I have to fall for you of all people?" he demanded, closing in on me.

"How rude of you say that," I teased, running a finger through my hair. "Although I've led a troubled life, I happened to be born with such beauty, you couldn't help it the moment we met, though I never intended to spark this amour you feel so strongly feel melting my very heart. As I find myself ignited too, Luke, I just might cry in confessing to you my love." I held one hand over my heart, extending the other out in a theatrical gesture as I bowed, grinning as I did.

Luke broke out into a baffled expression, taking me seriously a moment, and then launching himself on me. I seized him in my arms pushing him against the railing forming at v at the very front of the ship. Locked in, his eyes went wide, the sun dancing in their emerald depths like jewels.

"You don't know when to give up, do you?" I whispered, tracing a finger along his parted lips, soft like rose petals and pink like carnations beckoning, full of innocence. "You are in reality a child of only seven years old Luke, though your body is reaching sexual maturity. I imagine it must be difficult to be driven by those urges, without your mind fully understanding what it all means. Did Guy not explain that?"

"Not like that, he just said when you touch another's body in that special way, you show them how you feel…" Luke admitted, blushing, his complexion suffused with pink in that way an adolescent discovers his first kiss, I found it rather cute.

"I see. Replicas come into the world like babies not knowing how to walk. You're the first replica I've met whose lived this long to explore sexuality, when his mind has yet to mature, so from a scientific viewpoint I find you fascinating," I explained, tucking a red lock of hair behind Luke's ears. "But obliged as you have much to learn. If you were anyone else, Luke, I'd lack the patience I hardly have."

He took my cheeks in his hands, tilting his head up so our gazes fully met. His lips trembled as he spoke. "Is it because…I'm a replica? Is that why you're treating me this way, Jade?" he asked full of longing.

"Partly I seek Nebilim's forgiveness. She was the first replica I created, who vanished before I could apologize. Perhaps through you, it's a way for me to come to terms with what happened to her," I said gently, running both my hands down his arms from my cheek to his shoulders, playing over the sinews of his muscles contracting underneath and sending shivers down his spine at my touch.

"I'm sorry." Luke's voice softened and gaze dropped, though his body coiled in pleasure. "I can't imagine how painful it was for you to loose someone like Nebilim so dear. It must be worse than anything I experienced at Akzeriuth, so I don't think I could really understand."

I chuckled, tilting his chin up to look deep in my crimson eyes. "You of all people comforting me, but I appreciate the sentiment, Luke. If you knew who I truly was, the things I did, I'm sure you'd feel differently."

"You always try to push me away," Luke murmured, his gaze intensified in mine like a fire burning between us.

"I am merely stating the obvious before you get involved in things you have yet to understand," I replied, my coolness washing over the fire that burned in his feelings.

"Then can you tell me, Jade? I want to know why I can't…love you of all people," he questioned, searching inside my heart with eyes that pierced through mine, calmed slightly though stirring.

"Even after Nebilim's death I continued fomicry research until the Hod war," I explained, feeling old pangs come up, though I hid them beneath the placid guise worn outside on my face. "Kimlasca declared war on Malkuth to attempt to bring prosperity through the Score. A large number of Kimliscan Royal Forces, 20,000 strong stationed themselves at Hod before launching a preemptive strike on Grand Chokma. That's when we destroyed Hod and the Kimlascan army with an artificially induced hyper-resonance, for the sake of saving our people…"

I wondered what Luke would think now that I confessed more of my sins and the deeds that earned me the name of Necromancer. "I pioneered the technology for that attack in military research, under strict orders from the previous emperor, Peony's father. When Peony ascended the throne still in war, we decided that in order to save more lives we could extract the replica data of soldiers on the battlefield nearing death, programming their replicas to fight in place saving lives. Those replicas had no individual identity, no life in their eyes like zombies because of forced programming implanted in their minds at rebirth. We sent them marching mindlessly into battle to combat the remaining Kimlscan troops who remained. From retrieving the wounded off the battlefield, and creating replicas who looked just like them, there arose rumors I revived the dead with zombies in our battalions."

"So that's how you get the name 'Necromancer,'" Luke observed. "But you don't do fomicry now. That shows you've changed, you've—"

I placed a finger on his lips, pulling him in to my chest. "What a child you are," I sighed, kissing him on the forehead. "I tell you all the awful things I've done, yet you still view me in the same light with that young, tender heart of yours. I understand why Ion said you were a kind person when we first met, though you had difficulty expressing it at that time."

"Is that a compliment? Coming from you, no," Luke chuckled, returning my kiss on the cheek. He breathed deeply resting his face against my chest, finding refuge in my arms drawn around him. "I guess since you told me, it means you trust me and we're at least friends."

"Perhaps in time we'll grow to be more," I suggested, allowing a hint of sincerely to show through in my subtle smile.

After bearing the sins of my soul to him and seeing how I reacted I decided to let him get one step closer to my heart, the closest anyone's ever been since Nebilim's loss and my grief. Those I eventually let in I wrap in some form of warmth, trust specifically, if it can be called that. The trust people gain in months takes me lifetimes to learn, it's the reason I'm so distant wondering how I got this close to Luke in my life.

Luke's face was alight and heart danced with joy at my words.

"If the sins of the past can be healed, I may grow to…love you one day as well," I whispered, "Seeing how you've come so far to know me, if I can ever feel such a feeling."

"It's okay, Jade, you've been there by my side. I can't ask for more," admitted Luke, his round boyish face with rosy cheeks spreading to a smile that warmed my heart, moved for the first time in ages.

His warmth melted through in on my chest in heat that made me feel alive, thumping in my heart, flowing through my veins to the endings of my limbs, and every sinew contracted throughout my entire body enveloping me in love. The tears threatened to well again when his feeling reached deep in my heart to where the pain lay harbored all those years wanting to break free, to seek release through forgiveness of myself. But the firm resolve expressed in my grave countenance like an iron gate shut tight, or a blade tempered from too many battles and killings washed in blood, only glimmering beautifully on the outside because its been polished so well, I'm indeed like that sword.

"I cannot promise you anything, Luke," I replied in regret, weighed heavily by the burden in my breast, over which ran the scar of Nebilim's attack on that night I created her replica long ago. "Like the happiness of knowing another people seek in bonds."

"The fact you've opened up this much since I first met you, that's enough," said Luke softly in my ear, with newfound confidence birthed inside his soul, seeking to penetrate deeper within my being, in his grasp around my shoulders reaching up, catching my lips in his, seizing my lower lip between his, his tongue darting out to trace mine in a wet trail that tickles my quivering skin.

Indeed, he's learning. In a scene I can only describe as romantic in terms of feeling and description, the sunk sank lower on the horizon casting the smooth mirror of sea in gold, in a shimmering trail that stretched out like a road, dancing off the wake the Tartarus left in that ribbon of light, now a comet's golden tail. The Tartarus slowed to a gentle glide like a swan spreading her wings in its sails wavering out, highlighted gold along its outer edges, shadows retreating a pearly gray further in the shade of clouds. Her dreary hull cast in rusty tones shone a livelier metallic shine, no longer tarnished like old silver blackened over.

The gold refracted off the outer edges of Luke's face created a halo around his head, carving his skin in soft yellow shades, bringing out the clearness of his complexion and fiery highlights in his thick red hair that made the Fabres renowned for their beauty. His scarlet locks blowing in the breeze, sticky in my hands from sea salt, caressed the sides of my fingers down into their valleys as I ran them through his hair caught in the setting light. His emerald eyes turned gold in their depths like yellow-brown amber, melded into dark-green malachite becoming a new stone entirely in his eyes, seizing my soul in wonder. His thin red brows rose slightly as his eyes widened revealing their roundness in gold-green pools that moved me, alive with passion that indeed I could change, one day I might love him as he did me, holding me dear in his heart, this Necromancer I am, a man of death whose done terrible things in the name of duty, as a soldier who sent replicas to their death in the Hod war long ago.

His pink rosebud lips curved up to a smile, full and smooth from youth, tinged even a subtle shade of gold on the bottom where the skin often catches light in a gloss shimmering over, parting to whisper, "As long as your by my side, and we create a world together where people can live in peace, I'll be happy proving I have some worth."

The maturity befitting a Duke's son, a future leader of his people finally came through in the words he spoke from the trails of our journey, having seen the horrors of war in the deaths of people from Akzeriuth and countless towns we've traveled.

I nodded, kissing him on his lips a final time, relishing the feel of the silky texture of lips brushing against mine, of his warm breath slipping through, tongue darting out seeking entry in my mouth, melting in my hot wet cavern, as his tongue so gently and innocently played on mine, tickling the roof of my mouth, our bodies intertwined with my hands tangled in his hair, almost collapsing over him on the railing, wanting to make sweet love for the sea, the sky and setting sun to see. I bid him goodnight forcing us to break away for the sake of catching my breath, knowing we shared a special moment before reaching Grand Chokma tomorrow.

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: I'm so glad I finished this. There's one scene I found a bit difficult to write with Luke and Jade in the last part, because Luke tries to describe an experience he's never had from his point of view, sort of like describing what an apple tastes like when you've never eaten one. Its really his first sexual experience with Jade, outside what Guy taught him. I tried to keep it tasteful focusing on Luke's feelings rather than on what's happening, but I tried to keep it clear at the same time, more in the PG13 realm.

* * *

Chapter 8

**Luke's POV**

After our encounter with Sync and Largo in Theor forest outside Grand Chokma, activating Guy's curse slot I couldn't understand why someone I loved like a father would attack me. Ion and Anise took Guy unconscious to an inn within the city to remove his curse, a specialized Daathic arte only a Fon Master could undo. I noticed too Anise had acted strangely ever since we departed from Keterberg acting somewhat distant as if she saw someone she didn't want to see. I worried about her, but it was truly when Guy's curse was activated my spirits sank within. Just when things improved between Jade and I, my bond with Guy seemed shattered. It was in those somber spirits General Frings greeted us in Grand Chokma, having no choice but to detain us until an audience with His Majesty. After all Malkuth's forces in the forest had been infiltrated by the Oracle Knights and all precautions were taken upon our arrival.

As Frings escorted us through the capital, if there was one thing that cheered my sullen mood it was Grand Chokma's beauty. Never had I seen a place so romantic and lovely, wishing Jade and I could spend time here together if St. Binah wasn't in danger of sinking, with Kimlasca preparing for war. I must tell you of the most rare white clouds I'd ever seen, sailing up against the azure sky on wings that carried them for miles. A magical rainbow that always hung over the city in translucent colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple and pink in a giant arc, caused from the sunlight hitting the waters of the city's aqueducts blessed the people with its beauty. And to describe the waterfalls of the aqueducts, I can only say its like a thousand droplets of watery pebbles crashing into the clearest pools below.

The water here is clear like the surface of a liquid mirror with sunlight dancing through, broken only by bubbles of the waterfalls, which hiss up in spray, eddying around throughout canals in the city, some sleeping in dark shaded pools, others open in the light with exotic species of fish, sea turtles, and a few dolphins seeking refuge from the ocean's tumultuous currents outside in spite of their tropical warmth. The city's waterways are so clean constantly circulating in water from the sea, allowing marine life to pass freely in and out, like the clouds blown freely in the sky high above.

The people too dress fashionably in ethnic clothes like beaded tunics, colorful scarves and baggy patterned pants modeling their garb after their emperor. On the palace grounds their clothes became more conservative replaced by the full body tunics and dark colored robes of aristocrats strolling about. Only a few soldiers stiff like statues seemed out of place, flanking the palace entrance ahead. We neared them passing a small bridge over another canal winding through, entering the palace's colonnaded entrance.

A servant passed the word to the audience hall above, where I heard several shouts like "Colonel Curtiss survived, how wonderful," before we followed after going up a grand staircase to the hall where His Majesty waited. General Frings went ahead to report to Sesseman and Nordheim, and the Emperor who gazed at Jade like the living dead. Of course his sly smile put them at ease as we proceeded.

"Jade!" Peony cried, springing up from his throne to embrace Jade warmly. "Even though Nephry told me by letter you died at Akzeriuth, I always believed you were alive."

"You're Majesty, please, not in front of our guests." Jade blushed, sighing.

"Embarrassed?" Peony laughed, grinning at his others generals who only sighed along with his Colonel.

"I cannot express how glad I am to see you," Peony exclaimed, releasing him. A somber shadow fell over as he expressed the state of national affairs. "It seems to have been caused by a fontech weapon Kimlasca recently developed. But Kimlasca thinks we destroyed Akzeriuth issuing a declaration of war for the deaths of princess Natalia and heir to the throne Luke fone Fabre."

"Your Majesty, I'm afraid it was no weapon but me. I'm the one who killed your people at Akzeriuth, a criminal by Malkuth Empire," I explained, stepping forward in shame with my head sunk down on my chest. "I know I cannot ask for your forgiveness but if you want my life to justify the loss of your people, I'll accept."

"Luke, its as if you're asking to be executed before we've told him what's really happened," Jade scolded, with a visage bearing down almost serious it scared me.

"As Kimlasca's princess, I should be the one to apologize," Natalia implored, joining me by my side.

Tear hid her feelings, though I could tell she thought Natalia and I were foolish by expressing ourselves, instead of taking a diplomatic approach she or Jade would more wisely do. I had made a fool of myself in front of the Emperor, when Jade seized control suggesting, "Your Majesty, let us meet privately first, before convening with the Council as to the best course of action the situation with Kimlasca, and the sinking of St. Binah warrants."

He did it so easily I couldn't help feeling dumber myself.

* * *

**Jade's POV**

I met with Peony after he dismissed Luke, Natalia and Tear asking them to wait outside. We were alone in his private chambers below the audience hall, a place that holds many memories where Peony grieved after his father passed away. And it was here he poured out his heart to me saying, _I love you so_.

I told him long ago in this room, _I know you proposed to my sister as a way to be closer to me, and you want me to love you back in the same way, but ever since our Professor's died, something died in me and I can't. I'm sorry._

I forced myself to focus in the present listening intently to what Peony said, after I explained the situation leading up to war with Kimlasca and the sinking of St. Binah.

"So that young man is Luke fon Fabre, the one who annihilated Akzeriuth with his hyper-resonance as a weapon manipulated by Van commanding the Oracle Knights, here with Mohs on the end in Batacul encouraging war," Peony reflected. "If you weren't by my side to advise me, I wouldn't know what to do if our nation was plunged in an all out war with Kimlasca. But I'm surprised you made it back here with the old age you say is forcing you to retire, my dear."

"Oh, please," I broke into laughing.

"I imagine it must have been difficult for you to visit the places of our childhood, love, where we played in the snow, where Nebilim lived, and you snuck out studying fonic artes into late hours when she scolded you," Peony reminisced, gazing at a picture of him, Saphir, Nebilim and I on his dresser.

"More with Luke's inquisitiveness, " I sighed, unable to hide my annoyance.

"Has he fallen for you?" Peony chuckled, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "I can tell because you hardly ever get bothered or mad."

"Even if he has, I won't let it interfere with my duty," I remarked, turning away out of his grasp he had around me.

"Hmm, don't think I'll be fooled, Jade, I know you too well," Peony countered, stepping in front to block my empty gaze. "I've spent hours thinking about Nebilim's death, pondering my own father's as well, coming to understand death is not the greatest loss in life, but the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live."

Peony grabbed my shoulders, his gaze burning into me as he spoke. "And by god, I've watched your heart die a slow death those years and it kills me," he cried, releasing me. "I'm afraid I can do no more to help you. But when I saw that boy Luke, his honesty, I saw something special…

"His innocence," I explained, taking Peony's hands in mine. "Because he's a replica, having the mind of child in an adult's body and…"

"He has a purity the world has lost," Peony continued as his expressing softened and his grasp relaxed in mine. "He reminds me of Professor Nebilim, how she saved you by changing you."

"I know Nephry thought the same thing, wanting to speak to him in private," I sighed, recalling the scene at Keterberg. "I know your concerned for my well-being Peony, but if I don't have to be involved with Luke in a relationship outside of my duty, I don't see the point in pursuing it."

"Jade, you've gone above and beyond your call in serving me, having been by my side all those years," Peony said, smiling. "You're my best friend, my better half, and I love you."

"Thank you, my apologies, I didn't mean to behave in such a way," I admitted, returning his smile.

* * *

**Luke's POV**

A maid beckoned from the ante-chamber to Peony's room, ushering Tear, Natalia and I into an immaculate space with smiling neatness in its polished marble floor, sparkling glass table crowned with fine wines, chairs arrayed neatly around and even the leaves of plants dusted clean. As the maid departed, Jade's tall form appeared in the doorframe from Peony's chambers further inside, with His Majesty right behind.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting, Master Luke," Peony began civilly. "Jade explained everything, suggesting you depart for St. Binah as soon as your comrade has recovered after his curse is removed, so you may evacuate St. Binah before its fall in the Quiphoth."

"I'll do my best," I promised, looking down out of shame. "Although I know there's no easy way for me to really apologize after what's been done."

Natalia offered me her support, and Tear suggested we should see if Ion had removed Guy's curse. Peony suggested they check up with Ion, Anise and Guy, while I remained here as he had further matters to discuss with me alone. I felt wracked with guilt having to confront the Emperor of the people whose lives I took without meaning to.

"There's no reason to fear His Majesty, Luke," Jade spoke at last, with an arm around me to steady my trembling frame.

"The truth is, the mining town of Akzeriuth has been territory contended between our nations for centuries, though Kimlasca claims sending you as an emissary of peace, you unleashed a hyper-resonance taking my dear subjects lives," Peony said calmly, taking a seat at the table and pouring himself a glass of wine.

A mature, self-controlled man like Jade, I couldn't tell what feelings he harbored inside. Jade offered me a seat, with both of us poured glasses by Peony, accustomed to such formality I hardly understood.

"As the ruler of my people, I've sworn to protect them like a father would his children, with Lorelei as my witness," Peony continued, his countenance darkening as any cheer quickly faded. "You are indeed a criminal to Malkuth, an enemy of my people, thus I am authorized on to execute you on legal grounds, with the permission of the Council if I wished. But that would provoke Kimlasca into an all out bloody war Mohs desires, with many dying like Hod."

I remembered Jade's words yesterday before on the Tartarus, that 15 tears ago Malkuth created an artificially induced hyper-resonance on Hod, slaughtering 20,000 of my country's troops in order to save their own people. That many people dying like Akzeriuth made me realize the horrors of war Jade took part in, killing many of General Cecilia's troops in other battle. He created replicas of his soldiers dying on the battlefield, born helplessly like me as infants, being programmed like zombies forced to fight and die before they could speak, which simply broke my heart.

I wondered in the present if Jade saw me as the same type of replica to be programmed, if he lied when he said I could trust him, now that I knew the horrors he committed. I remembered his indifference towards the deaths of his men aboard the Tartarus, making me realize how naïve I was falling in love with a man, who carried the scent of death. I started quivering wanting to loose control, right here in the enemy's lair at their home.

"But in hearing your story, His Majesty feels a sense of compassion," Jade said, sipping his wine that made his skin appear red through the glass.

"My dear boy," Peony continued, with the darkness of his visage broken by a sudden but pleasant smile. "From what I observed of the replicas we made in the Hod war, I imagine they felt much the same as you do, mere substitutes whose lives had no meaning except to die, protecting the originals that lived. I can't see you free, nor can I deny the atrocities you've committed to my people. Even if the Council grants you a pardon, you're still a criminal in my government's eyes."

"Your Majesty, I'll take responsibility on Malkuth's behalf to watch him," Jade interceded, regarding Peony thoughtfully. "To make sure such an incident never occurs again, taking him in my custody. Don't forget we must stop Van, avoid war with Kimlasca and evacuate St. Binah."

Even though Jade rushed to my side in my defense, I sank into myself like the day I was created, a helpless child wishing Guy was here by my side, that he loved me when I wasn't sure if I could trust Jade when my life was at stake.

* * *

**Jade's POV**

After Peony dismissed Luke leaving the two of us alone, I exclaimed, "Though Luke is at fault, you think the Council will agree with what I propose?"

"I know he's your friend, that you care, but you must understand my position as Emperor, with the burden I carry too," Peony sighed, downing a glass to drown his aches. "I never quite grasped in youth what it meant to be a father to one's people until you loose them. Since Akzeriuth, I've received reports from the Council some of our people are crying out for the blood of who they think responsible. Without your help as my advisor, our country would be plunged into chaos. When I see what's happened to you after Nebilim's death, I worry deeply, dear Jade."

"You know me better than I do myself, Peony," I admitted, downing what remained of my wine out of sinking spirits. "Because you know the sins of my past and the wounds of my soul. You see how pure Luke is, that if I have to open my heart, feeling my feelings once again, it's a way of seeking Nebilim's forgiveness through him."

"In the process forgiving yourself," Peony observed, clasping my hand in his across the table, "So you may learn to love again, feeling the feelings I always wanted you to experience, you couldn't give long ago."

"Ah, yes, you conceive of Luke saving my soul," I laughed, in a low chuckle escaping, almost cold. "I must say you've become religious in the time I've been away. You know I'm not fond of religion, having been forced by the Curtiss family once adopted to live a life steeped in mindless ritual, perhaps no different from the mental control I used, to create the 'forced programming' I implanted in our replica soldiers during war."

"Cynical as ever," Peony burst out laughing, sharing in my humor others found disturbing. A somber cloud fell over his face when saying, "But it would grieve me to see that poor boy executed. I'm rather fond of himself myself. I'd like you to speak on his behalf when the Council convenes, that perhaps you may keep him under your custody. It won't be easy confronting those who clamor for blood."

"To blame anyone in sating their rage, such is the folly of human nature when driven purely by sentiment, rather than logic," I exclaimed, assuring him. "Yes, I shall do what I can in protecting Luke. This presents a good opportunity as he sorely misunderstands me. I do feel for him although he sees me cold at times, warmer at others, when in fact my feelings remain the same."

"You are kind, Jade, to those you care about it, though its hard for you to express. So let this his chance to understand you," Peony implored.

I nodded, calling Luke back in, explaining to him his attendance at the Council, as they demanded to see the one responsible for Akzeriuth, but that I would protect him and he had no need to fear. In spite of my words, he couldn't help but shake.

"I don't want to die, just when I started living," Luke sniffled, hiding himself in my arms away from Peony's gaze. "Will I be executed, Your Majesty?" he cried, peeking out.

"Follow Jade's lead, and it'll be okay," he assured, placing Luke's trust in my hands.

In the gathering that followed in the Audience room, with members from both the Houses of Parliament and Commons that formed Peony's own Council, a quiet anger seethed below the formal gestures. I saw Luke tremble like a cornered animal about to be killed, seated in a separate seat aside Peony's throne, in front of all the Council to behold. Acting the part of Luke's defense, I stood in front dividing Luke from the Council seated, shielding him not only physically by psychologically against their rage.

It is true I dislike explanations as well as public speaking, but when the time calls for I can do it when necessary. I began with an opening statement, "Gentlemen, you are gathered today as we pursue this inquiry into the cause of Akzeriuth's destruction. It was not the fon-tech weapon engineered by Kimaslca as we thought, but this boy, Luke fon Fabre, a replica created by Van in the Order of Lorelei. Our true enemy is within the Mohs faction, Commandant Van. His intention is to send the Outer Lands down into the Quilopth, replacing humanity with replicas once everyone's been killed. I've been away with Luke here on a journey to save our world. I ask you allow me to keep Luke in my custody, as he's a criminal, but the greatest threat is the one facing our world."

Luke knew he shouldn't speak, but he couldn't help expressing himself, wracked again in guilt. "If you want to take my life for what I've done, I understand. In fact I'd give my life if I could bring to back all those people."

"It's true my family's from Akzeriuth, they died in its destruction, but will killing you bring them back?" General Frings asked, rising up, gazing on Luke with compassion and pain both mingled. "We, the Malkuth Army killed countless Kimlascans back in the Hod war, thinking a Malkuthian life worth more than a Kimlascan. For us to execute you shows we've learned nothing, about the value of human life that the cycle of hate continues."

"I agree," chimed General Nordheim, joining Frings. "We cannot accuse the enemy of the blood they've shed, when we've shed much ourselves. However, he's still a criminal and I'll accept Colonel Curtiss's custody over his crimes."

The rest of the Council agreed once they saw Luke's sorrow. I was ordered to watch him, that such a tragedy would never occur, taking responsibility if it happened. When we met back in the antechamber to Peony's room, with Luke questioning, "Why did you save me? You know I'm a criminal, I deserve to—"

I slapped him across the face, leaving him stunned at my outburst. "Your feelings could have cost you your life, had I not interceded!" I hissed.

"Dammit Jade," Luke winced, rubbing his cheek. "Do you think I asked for that, or to fall in love with you?"

"You choose to," I replied, shrugging.

"God, I didn't ask you to agree with me…" Luke growled, coiling in fear over all that happened in the Council and Guy's incapacitated condition.

Loosing himself in my face, he threw himself on me against the wall burying his head in my arms sobbing bitterly. I said no words but ran my fingers through his hair tangled in their locks, relishing the feel of their thickness in my hands. Pushing up harder, Luke dried his tears in my uniform, reaching up to meet my lips. I sank down without hesitation, ignited by the fire in my blood. For too long, almost 15 years it'd been since I experienced such bodily passion needing release. I switched our positions with Luke against the wall snaking my arms around him.

"Jade, what are you…" he gasped.

"This is something that will help both of us feel better," I whispered, guilty.

Perhaps I was the villain taking advantage of Luke in this state, with his mind driven by feelings for me clouded over. But I too was hurting inside, though I managed to hide it, seeking release from the hurt though lovemaking as I did back in my youth with Peony.

* * *

**Luke's POV**

I could understand the situation with Guy explaining things to me back at the Fourth Monument Hill, how when you care about a person, by touching them in that special way you show them how you feel, because Guy and I are close, the best of friends, each other's very souls. But getting into a similar scene with Jade still unnerved me, even after all the bonding we went through in knowing one another. We are so opposite as people its hard to understand one another without judging and setting aside our differences.

"Don't people say 'I love you,' before doing this sort of thing?" I asked, as he unbuttoned my white jacket tossing it aside on a chair by the round glass table.

An amused expression broke out over his face, masking any pain he held. "Typically, a man will tell a woman such words to lure her in bed, or the other way around, if they desire only the physical pleasure of sex leaving the other party injured. So I see no reason to use such words when the act itself can be…_enjoyed_." An undercurrent of lust ran in that word, glowing in his eyes through controlled.

"Is that why people breakup, relationships don't last?" I pressed, as he slipped off my black tank top over my head, leaving it on my jacket.

I shivered feeling vulnerable naked from the waist up, with my question still hanging unanswered in the air.

"So many questions," Jade sighed, undoing the buttons of his own uniform. "It happens for many reasons. But is what you've wanted, right Luke?"

I nodded shyly reaching up to his uniform, slipping the last few buttons out of their buttonholes, watching him turning around as it slipped to the floor, wondering if this was really right. Could a replica such as myself understand this intimacy shared between two people? Could I grow through this experience becoming more of an adult who understood the ways of the world? So many doubts surged through my mind, racing at Jade now clothed in his black turtleneck, pants, his thigh high boots and gloves worn up his arms.

His build was thinner than I expected, obscured before under his previous coverings, though well muscled and toned, hiding power in the sinews of his limbs, never revealing what strength lurked inside. He moved with an easy turn of grace I never quite caught, once stifled by the uniform now gone, reaching for his glasses, placed carefully by the wineglasses on the table, gazing directly into my eyes. His deep red irises regarded me thoughtfully, as if reading what exactly I expected from our encounter.

A knowing but sad smile crossed his face, direct and genuine as he took my hand in his running it through his hair, silky like a curtain of living satin when my fingers combed through, smelling sweet to my nose, a softer scent than his cologne, possessing the freshness of flowers after the rain drenching the dew laden air. What flower like jasmine, lily of the valley or rose that scented his hair I could hardly guess. I closed my eyes inhaling it deeply drawn into every facet of his being, his own bodily scent almost as sweet as his hair.

I honestly don't find men attractive but he posses such elegance, not effeminate in nature but manly I cannot help but be drawn, with intelligence beyond all my knowing. How an amazing man gifted in countless ways felt himself drawn to an imperfect replica like me, a dreck in my original's eyes I'll never know, only I felt loved though he couldn't express it. The way he stood up for me at the Council showed he cared, wanting me to live on to find my own reasons what life truly meant, why I was born and I existed.

I didn't have words to express my feelings as I'm not good with words, but followed his direction in the gestures he lead me to follow, guiding my hand along his jaw tracing his smooth white skin, so perfect in texture and soft, I wondered how such a man might not be vein from his beauty?

"I don't understand," I exclaimed, "Why we are doing this, when Guy showed me something else?"

"I'm tired of answering needless questions, perhaps we should continue this another time," he suggested, adding, "I wonder if Guy's curse seal has been removed."

"We're stopping after all this?" I questioned.

"What an impertinent boy you are," he remarked, tilting my chin up and seizing my lips in a kiss, which I tried to protest, but was pushed back against the wall like before. "And should you mention this to anyone, I have to punish you, and you don't want that, do you?"

"N…No," I murmured, captured by his arms around my shoulders and the crush of his lips on mine, demanding entrance in my mouth. I felt his tongue dart in, playing off the roof of my mouth, tickling, making me laugh.

His mood seemed to lighten, finding release from his pain through our intimacy. He broke away, blowing softly in my ear whispering my name in shivers up my spine. Next, he seized one of my wrists in his hand, masking an innate aggression if freed might hurt me. Even if he appeared perfectly controlled I could tell he held back guiding me like I'm a child. I tried not to feel insulted but grateful as a token of his unspoken love. In the lock around my wrist, he loosened his grasp ever slightly, prodding my fingers to reach for his collar. In the hold I had over the zipper there, he pressed his fingers over mine, tugging down slowly to reveal inch by inch of white skin down his neck as if to tease me.

Seeing my frown, he flashed me his soft disarming smile. "Now, now, Luke, is that any way to behave when I have other such things to do, like sleep away the afternoon so I may rest my tired, aching body? You have no respect for the elderly, do you dear Master?"

"Okay, 'master' from you is…wrong, and secondly…" I stammered at a loss of words.

He reached beneath my arms tickling me.

"Hey!" I growled.

"Now, where were we?" Jade laughed, thrusting my hand through the exposed zipper of his shirt half way down his chest.

I blushed at the sensation of my hand over one of his nubs, obviously hardening at my touch, as his other arm pulled me closer into him against the wall holding me against it. He seemed to enjoy this game of catching me off guard, sandwiching me between him and the wall, this time pulling down the zipper of his shirt completely exposing his the planes of his pale muscled chest.

"I…" I gasped, unable to focus at the sight of his bare tantalizing skin.

"What? I'm not attractive? How you insult me Luke, when you thought my face wasn't beautiful until my glasses were off, now with body too," he sighed, running my hand down to his stomach and back up. "Or will you stop being a naughty boy and apologize?"

"I never…" But he cut me short, sweeping me up off the floor, and into Peony's room.

I heard the sound of a lock on the door being clicked, feeling the softness of a bed below, scanning the room in a disorderly state, with books and clothes strewn about, certainly a reflection of Peony's interior design. Before I could take in the rest, Jade appeared over me faster than I could blink. I saw his grin fill the periphery of my vision, his twinkling red eyes full of mischief and ardor. Seeing my reflection gazing back from their depths, I couldn't help but allow myself to sink beneath him in submission, bearing my neck as a sign.

He pulled off his open black top, sliding off his gloves tossed aside; pressing kisses down over my Adam's apple, blowing softly on my skin. He sent more shivers shooting through me, indeed highly experienced, making me wonder why he just didn't take advantage forcing me into some act.

"You're scared, Luke," Jade paused, raising himself over me, addressing me seriously for once in our intimate situation.

"Jade, I've heard of people being hurt in situations like this, if they're…forced," I whispered, trying to hide my fear brimming through.

"Indeed, such a thing is possible, but I'd like you to know, it's also something pleasurable when shared between those who care," he admitted, smiling gently.

I closed my eyes feeling stupid, having misunderstood him completely, realizing how little I knew about him and his feelings. His tender kisses down my neck told he didn't mind, how mature he was like Guy, how much feeling melted through in his lips grazing my skin, catching one of my nubs between his teeth, playing with his tongue. I gasped arching up into him at the pleasurable feeling that flooded through. A subtle smile over his face and crimson eyes glowed with affection, something I never imagined possible the moment we first met. Jade truly had a warmer side he had hid from the world, revealed to Emperor Peony and now me.

His deft hands drew lazy circles over the ripples of my stomach, as his beautiful red eyes held me locked in his gaze, never loosing contact when his hands trailed lower to the confines of my pants, pausing. He fixed his gaze, asking, "You don't truly mind this? If our friends knew what we did…"

"You're worried it'd do something to the group spirit, just when we've all learned to get along," I whispered, pressing his hand down on the ache in my clothes. "But I don't care if you're another guy, Jade. I'm tired of worrying what of others think, even if they're our friends we've traveled with and they don't approve."

"We'll have to be prepared if…" he paused, pondering what I said.

"I love you, Jade," I murmured, wanting to cry from the feelings that burst in my heart, ached in my arousal even more painful from my emotion. "If I deny how I feel, just like how I didn't want to take responsibility for Akzeriuth, then it shows I haven't changed, I'm just a hypocrite who wants to believe his words are true."

"Being honest with yourself shows you've grown as a person," Jade assured, propping my neck up under his other hand, cradling my head in his palm. "I cannot lie and say 'I love you' when I don't mean it, because it goes against my honesty, only that…"

"That what?" I asked, pressing his hand down a bit harder.

"You have a beautiful heart, Luke," he whispered, freeing my arousal from its constraints, his eyes glowing with a softness I never thought possible, and an expression truly direct for the first time since we met.

I thrust into his hand as some innate reflex took control, wishing I could say something special back that moved his heart as it did mine, only my body driven by desire blocked out all rational thought, focusing on the blaze consuming my senses, wanting release in his hand, but somehow my feelings spilled through in tears I couldn't fight.

"Have I hurt you?" he asked, releasing his hold on that intimate aspect of my body.

"No, I…"

"It's okay. In fact I feel rather silly saying what I did but…" he trailed off, finishing what he started, bringing me further into the fire that built, my breathing deepening, heart racing, and entire body tensing until the coiling that tightened in my stomach gave way, and I soared up on a wonderful feeling surging through.

I lost myself in the after shakes of that feeling, understanding now what Guy experienced what he once showed me, why he did this thing before, but no one ever really talked about as if it were bad.

"Jade, what was that?" I questioned a minute later; my eyes fluttering open, clouded with visions of what just passed. "It felt…good. Was it a bad thing to experience? Why didn't I know about this before? Do all originals know this kind of…thing?"

"Luke…" Jade sat up closing his eyes.

"Oh, no, your chest, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that," I apologized, sitting up, trying to reach for what I caused, some essence of mine on his body rather messy.

Jade seized my hand in his before I could do a thing. "It saddens that you have to learn about something quite natural to your body, that your mind doesn't fully grasp. When I think of those replicas Van intends to create to populate his replica world, born with the minds of infants and bodies of adults, not understanding why they live…"

He paused admitting something I saw only once, the time Legretta attacked us at Deo pass early in our adventure, he rarely showed it, scaring me as he said, "…I feel a sense of anger. Though I hate explanations, I'll try to address your questions later. In the meantime, we should see if Ion has finished removing Guy's curse…"

"Thank you, for teaching me," I whispered, burying my face in his neck.

He kissed me on the forehead, smiling wistfully as he cleaned us up, and we dressed heading to the inn to check on Ion's progress, reporting soon to Natalia, Anise and Tear our plans to head for St. Binah.

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

Thank you everyone who added this fic to your favorites or story alert list.

* * *

Chapter 9

**Jade's POV**

As the father of fomicry, I took responsibility for the life Van created, never intending to be a mentor or lover to Luke. It was hard for me to believe I opened up to him like that, the first time I did to anyone like that in 15 years. I needed to understand where my heart lay in relation to Luke. No matter how deeply I searched, all I saw was the layers numbness that once iced it over melting away, unleashing a torrent of feeling I thought I lost buried deep down inside, beneath my seemingly placid guise. My rational mind raced ahead, taking control, telling the feelings that cried out in my heart, even if Peony's words are true that _death is not the greatest loss in life, but the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live,_ it doesn't change the fact if I surrendered to my feelings, I'd fall apart completely from the person I am now.

It was the battle of logic versus feeling, in myself logic always won, at least until now since I found myself bonded to Luke. I drifted in thought as he followed me, my ears taking in sounds like the cawing of gulls in the bay, whisper of water in canals, and the pattering of his feet coming up behind me, ceasing when his arms took hold, his hands wrapped tight over my stomach and chin pressed hard in my back.

"Jade," he pleaded, hiding his face in my chest as I turned around in his grasp, "Don't tell anyone what we did, what happened…" his voice drowned below the rushing water, from the arched bridge on which we stood, dividing the palace grounds from the residential district in Grand Chokma, where our friends resided at one of its inns.

A subtle smile crossed my lips as I stroked his hair, rocking him in my arms. "You should know, Luke, romantic relationships between men are shunned, especially in a military profession like mine, where one rumor can destroy a man's sense of honor, myself not exempted were my superiors to know."

"I swear I won't let anyone know, not even Guy, if he asks then I'll say we're just friends," Luke swore, raising his face up to mine deep in feeling.

"Then, I'll be expecting you to uphold that same promise, you made about my past concerning Nebilim a secret," I replied, pressing a kiss back to his forehead that sent tingles spiraling through me.

Our intimacy awoke the fires of passion I denied for so long, like those feelings buried in my heart. I liken it to a river swelling in full force that's broken free from the dam that once constrained it. Even one such as myself trained in logic, is subject to those impulses we harbor inside, no matter how sophisticated our intellect may be. It falls when we're ignited by a single touch after our desires have been dormant. The longer one tries to fan it, the hotter it burns, stirring with other feelings along in my heart I've buried, controlled for so long, I questioned if I could quell it.

The truth was during my encounter with Luke, I intended to have him do the acts on me I preformed on him to relieve my desire. It was pure selfishness, taking advantage of his innocence. However, when he asked was sexuality _a bad thing to experience, why didn't I know about this before, do all originals know this kind of thing,_ a pang of sadness shot through me in full sympathy I should teach him.

Did his creator imagine the confusion he faced in searching for his self, what it meant to live? If Van were his father having birthed him at Coral Castle in that fon-machine aside his original, Luke, a naked child formed as soon as the seventh fonons composing him solidified, what did Van think the moment Luke opened his eyes, taking his first breath of air, thinking his first thoughts, crying his first cry in existence? I imagine the fear newborn infants face: a glaring, bright world, assaulting them from beyond the warm, wet cave, which they emerge.

That frightened child, hidden in Luke when he thought he had amnesia, awoke in him the moment he discovered his existence as a replica, lost in fear. My arms became the father's arms that should of welcomed him in this world, my hand the guiding light of his life as if I carried him in my soul. This was how he found his way in my heart, slipping past my defenses, stirring feelings within a heart I thought died after Nebilim's death, I realized the truth of Peony's words, _that death is not the greatest loss in life, but the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live._ And through Luke I might live.

When we reached the inn, Anise informed me Ion removed Guy's curse seal, but at a great cost to his health leaving him so exhausted, poor Ion collapsed out of sheer tiredness asleep since then. Guy's psychological trauma of his memories released after the seal lifted sent him to a breakdown, rather a shocked state than all out collapse, needing time to gather his thoughts. Tear in her wisdom as a healer cast a sleep arte on Guy, so in his dream state he might resolve his pain, waking up feeling whole. With Guy and Ion out asleep, leaving Tear, Natalia and Anise to watch them, Luke grew bored wondering where I strayed.

The truth is Luke's dependence on me, combined with Ion's fatigue and Guy's stress was getting on my nerves. With Luke what little patience I had bottomed out, and Anise whimpering over Ion's condition served no further. Natalia would then observe my reaction, chiding, "Colonel, how could you! Say something," leaving me to shrug and sigh, "My apologies." I needed a way to relieve stress keeping my cool.

It's something some single men do in our profession out on long campaigns, away from their wives and sweethearts, daring not engage in such acts with other men. The implicit excuse a soldier needs "time alone to train," is really a discreet way of saying "there's something I need to do cause I miss the company of my wife." In a world built on tact, regulated by the strict, top-down, chain of command, _don't ask don't tell_ like other militaries becomes the rule.

As I sought solace in a room alone at the inn where Ion and Guy recuperated, watched vigilantly by the others, with Luke nowhere to be found, I reminisced about what he felt back at Keterberg in Peony's study, the way he lay thinking of me when his heart called out, I teased him remarking, _you're aroused aren't you,_ embarrassing him. Then afterwards I told him I didn't think a relationship with me would work and he sprained his ankle in the snow. I've caused him pain unable to return his feelings, even before when I said _you have a beautiful heart, Luke_, though it made him happy.

What did he see inside me, this cold-hearted Colonel, who distances from the world himself through his sarcasm and soft disarming smiles? I suppose since I treated him meanly back at Keterberg when his erection ailed him, it was only fitting I should be alone now with the same ache driving me to relieve it. The truth is feeling it in a space by one's self is lonely now that I think of it. But I became so accustomed to loneliness over the years, now that I felt Luke's intimacy, I realized the alienation I once embraced hurt.

Even beneath my self-controlled guise, I am human with the same fears and joys as others, though I hide it well it looks I'm impervious when my heart is really ailing. Only Luke shows his heart openly like a blossom with its petals, revealing its beauty: a young, sweet visage, unmarred by the maladies of the world. His laughing emerald eyes, twinkling with life filled my mind's eye. His delicate pink lips curling sent tingles spiraling through, building to a fire by his hair tumbling bout, his tanned face blushing as if he knew my thoughts. My eyes flickered open taking in the rustic room's dim light, furnished with old beds, a dresser and mirror, a sign of the inns low cost. The vision of Luke dancing in my mind like a mist on the horizon vanished quickly, revealing only my rude surroundings.

To be alone at such a time and place serves as a form of poetic justice in my disparaging train of thought. So I decided to be done with what I came to do, an etiquette engrained in my mind from years of martial discipline that my friends including Luke need not be privy to what I am to do. Since my stroll from the palace, an abiding ache persisted in my pants, concealed by the stiffness of a uniform I thank. It is what it is, a primitive urge to be relieved, one Nature has cleverly engineered in the deepest recesses of the mind, ensuring the continuation of one's species. To think that love lifts one's spirits high above the monotony of life through sex, on some mystic plane where people remain soulmates forever is silly.

I could never tell Luke that. I'd break his heart destroying what little esteem he gained in the time he's known he's a replica. In this case, I allow him to think his fantasy of how I feel is reality, in which he conceives I can truly love him. Were it any other person like an original with their sense of self, I'd cease to play such childish games. Because in my heart I do care to those I've bonded, known a long time, but very few including Peony and now Luke hold a place there inside. Even my own sister lives in a place further out, though closer than the world, next coming my dear comrades.

Just when I emptied my mind and stripped of my gloves tossed aside, my hands traveling down my stomach to the source of the ache in my pants, exposed to the open air, sending shivers shuddering through me, I couldn't imagine a more inopportune time Luke would really come searching.

"Hey Jade, where the hell are you?" he bellowed out, pacing the hall outside. "Ion and Guy are sleep, Anise won't stop worrying, and all Natalia and Tear talk about is what artes they can use to help." One of his shoes came down on the floor, making the walls vibrate with his rage. "Man, its no different here than the manor." The shuddering ceased and he laughed. "Of course, in there, it's the only unopened door. Wonder what Jade's doing…"

"Jade, I—" Luke's voice trailed off, dying in midair. He frowned, studying what I was doing. "Is this a bad time? You look like you're doing one of those relaxation things like yoga, I bet it's a Malkuth military exercise, eh?"

I sighed, raising a hand to my forehead in exasperation, still holding my aching length in the other, wondering what I should say to Luke's inane comment, and the corners of my lips quirked to a sly but subtle smile. "Well, my dear little Luke," I teased, echoing Peony's mannerisms. "Shall we play a game, since you seem to have forgotten everything Guy explained? If you win I'll not only tell you what I was doing, I may even show you…"

Luke muttered, hitting his forehead with the flat of his hand. "What the hell!?"

"A game of hide and seek, my dear," I chuckled, dressing myself. "Close your eyes, count to ten, and if you find me in the hotel, than I'm yours. Of course, the rules are I can hide wherever I want, _anywhere_."

"Shut up," he hissed, storming in.

I leaned over him, my smile slowly widening.

"F-fine," he gave in, closing his eyes and counting.

I raced downstairs towards the lobby, setting my inner-child free. It's been so long since I played innocent games like this like I had with Dist in my youth, spanking him if he lost, torturing him if inclined. Of course with Peony it was all sweet lovemaking. I could give a little to Luke continuing our lessons if he won. I waited behind the check-in counter in the lobby, eying the women's restroom. When the last line of girls primping their hair, applying makeup and gossiping filed out, I darted in locking one of the stalls. Just appropriately Natalia and Anise happened to fly in. They did their business, but it was when they approached the vanity, they struck up a little chat.

"Oh Natalia, I'm so jealous I don't have melons like Tear," Anise whimpered, pointing to her flat childish chest.

"But even though I'm her age, mine won't grow any larger," sighed Natalia, posing in the mirror. "The truth is I'm jealous too, I think Luke notices hers more than mine. And even Guy though he pretends to be a gentleman by not noticing. But the Colonel, I don't want to know what he's thinking."

"There's a word for that if you're not interested in checking out others," Anise laughed merrily, joining Natalia in a pose of her own. "Asexual!" she piped and knew full well I liked Luke, but she was a good girl by not saying anything because we were friends.

"Maybe you're right. I've seen him tickle Guy along with you, or joke that Luke and Tear have lover's quarrels, but he's never seemed interested in any of us," Natalia added, sighing again, dropping her silly pose and eying her chest in the mirror.

"If the Colonel's really asexual, then he only had one parent who created him by cutting its hair, or removing some body part, growing an entire new Colonel, at least that's how asexual reproduction works in one-celled amebas," Anise suggested, breaking out in another laugh nearly falling over. "So I'd guess if you were asexual, you were born asexually as well. But Luke's birth as a replica comes closer to that, born from the seventh fonons extracted from Ashe's body."

Luke stopped counting a while ago, drawn towards the ladies bathroom by the mention of his name his opened ears happened to catch above the din of murmurs in the lobby.

"Don't be jealous, Natalia," chuckled Anise, facing the princess. "Cause at 18 you're still growing, and you may even beat Tear! At least in the important places."

"My god, you may be right. This is just one of those things guys don't understand, that a woman's body really influences her self-esteem," Natalia observed, fixing her hair. "I was just 'her highness' back at the castle, never thinking about this sort of thing."

_Ah, I bet Jade's hiding in there, that's just the sort of thing he'd do_, Luke thought, grinning, _you freak, you're mine._

Luke walked right in, kneeling down on all fours to see if I hid in one of the stalls. Of course, I cleverly jumped up on the toilet see before his eyes could catch me.

"Anise, down below, a dog came in!" shrieked Natalia.

"No, it's…it's Luke, you pervert!" cried Anise, half laughing. "Did you hear what we said?"

"Yeah, well you're about as sexy as Mieu when it comes to melons," Luke muttered, half dumbly, enjoying this game of making the puppeteer mad.

"Anise, that's sexual harassment. Don't let him tease you like that!" Natalia growled, jumping in. Her eyes grew watery as if she were about to cry, facing Luke. "You used to be so innocent before you cut your hair back in Yulia City, Luke. What happened?"

"It's the Colonel." Anise stuck her tongue out, making a funny face.

I kicked the bathroom stall to get her attention, letting her see the bottom of my boot in a flash of gold below.

"I mean, Luke's trying to learn jokes from him," she piped, in the heat of the moment. She turned to Luke. "And this is for being mean to me. Tokunaga grow!" she commanded, sending her gigantic doll after Luke clobbering him.

"Ouch!" Luke cried loosing his balance from the doll pushing him over.

"Haha, let's go, we can't keep Tear waiting. She says Ion and Guy will soon wake up," Anise giggled, taking Natalia quickly in tow.

"Man, what was I doing, looking for Jade in here?" Luke grumbled, pulling himself to his feet, sighing.

"Well, hello Luke, I see you've had quite an adventure with the ladies," I chuckled, kicking the stall door open, striding out. "I _did _say I could hide wherever I wanted, remember?"

Luke's mouth twisted to a smile, half frowning. "Indeed, Guy was right that if you looked up 'evil' in the dictionary, your face would be right by it."

"Of course," I agreed, with a play of words at hand. "'Wicked' is also a synonym for 'evil,' describing how I look, 'wickedly gorgeous' perfectly well. And your face, dear Luke would be next to 'dense,' right?"

"Sh…shut up!" he hissed, scowling.

I stifled my laugh with a hand. "Now, now, you know its not gentlemanly behavior to go away playing in the ladies bathroom, so let's get going."

"You're the pervert, not me," Luke muttered, wading back out to the lobby.

I couldn't help but smile when a maid working at the inn crossed Luke's path in the lobby.

"Sir, I'm afraid it's against our regulations for men to be using the women's restroom," she began, "And we'll have to call the military to arrest you."

"Well, hello Sherry, it looks like I've come by at the right time," I interceded, pretending I just strolled in from outside. "I can arrest this disagreeable interloper on the grounds of invading privacy. Shall I take him away?"

"Please, Colonel Jade, I'm afraid we'll be loosing business if this kind of thing keeps happening," the maid Sherry sighed.

Luke groaned not saying anything until I took him back upstairs to the room where he had first found me.

"So this was you game, huh Jade? I really am just a stupid replica after all," Luke whimpered, sitting down on one of the sold sagging beds hugging the paint-flaked wall. "It's also why I can't remember why Guy showed me what he did, why you were doing what you were doing just before…"

"Luke, I'd like you to accept my apologies," I started, sitting down beside him, taking his hand in mine. "Because I do care, though I don't show it to others, besides you and His Majesty. The truth is, sexuality can be an embarrassing subject, even to the most rational people as myself. When we study its behavior in animals or evolution, it's one thing. But with people…"

"You used humor as a way to deal with the embarrassment, it's understandable," Luke agreed, clasping his other hand over mine. "But why did you say so in the first place?"

"I didn't expect you to walk in," I rejoined, catching his gaze in mine.

"I'm sorry. You should of scolded me, like you did about Akzeriuth," Luke implored, lost deep in my crimson eyes.

"I told you before that no one is perfect. Even originals learn about sexuality in their teenage years," I explained, stroking his cheek with my palm. "Including myself. No one is born knowing everything, even me."

"But you developed fomicry, realized all those—" Luke protested, but I claimed his lips in a kiss.

"Let me teach you, instead of beating yourself up for what you don't know," I said gently, breaking the crush of our lips. "Because through you, I've grown. And I want you to do the same with me. Both you and His Majesty were right when you said a part of me died inside after Nebilim's death. It wasn't her death, but her love and the memory of her inside my heart I allowed to die, that stopped me from feeling altogether. It's why I couldn't tell you, Luke, 'I love you,' and mean it when you wanted."

"Jade, its okay." Luke smiled sweetly, as if tears wanted to stream down his face, as he clasped my wrists by his cheeks. "I've learned on our journey we're all different people, and if we think a person doesn't care if they don't show it, then its just childish of them, especially me."

"But my coldness is partly to blame," I added, insisting. I traced his lower lip with my thumb and cheekbones with my index finger, from my palm under his jaw. "Luke, you've become an adult in some ways, like acknowledging the pain of Akzeriuth. But in social interactions with others, like Anise and Natalia back in the women's bathroom, you are very much a child. I'm sure as you grow, you'll come to understand those seemingly different parts of yourself come together."

"In spite of what you think is your coldness, you're very wise," Luke admitted, quivering under my touch. "And there's so many things I don't understand. That's why I like being with you, learning about things so they make sense, its why…I fell in love with you."

_And why I've grown, when I thought I died inside. Your love, Luke, is what has started to change me, when I thought I'd remain the same person after Nebilim's death_, I wanted to say, but returned his affection with a slight smile, letting him explore my body, as I took his hands in mine, undoing the buttons of my uniform, this time more quickly than before, having little time before matters called us back to our friends.

With my uniform thrown off, followed by my gloves, I guided his hands beneath my black undershirt. "Remember, keep this between us," I whispered, tenderly in his ear. "As things happen, I'll try to…explain them."

"But I know you hate explaining…" he whispered back, his hands trailing beneath mine up my chest, over the rippled planes of my stomach.

"This is different, Luke," I murmured, nibbling on his earlobe, letting my tongue dart out, playing inside its inner shell, sending shivers shooting through.

"That feels…good." His eyelids fluttered shut and mouth spread softly to a smile.

I returned his smile inwardly, bringing his trembling fingers further up my chest in the dip of my collarbones, down on my beating heart, allowing his fingertips to grace the scar where Nebilim's claws once slashed me, ghosting over the hard scarred skin, racing under his touch. He lightened the way his fingertips brushed over, tickling me to the point I barely felt it, a torture-some feather light touch like the kind Peony used to give, I missed in the throes of passion. Indeed, from our single encounter Luke grew to one who knew not only my heart, but also my body as well, all of me.

My nerves raced as I felt some happiness in his company, unlike the loneliness of being by my own self before he came to my room. This time it was his turn to show me how he felt, blessed by the ministrations he laid with his lips on the skin of my chest.

"Is this…right?" he asked nervously, glancing up from my heart. "Because before you knew what to do and…"

I smiled gently, pressing his lips back to my skin, this time up the smooth column of my neck, an elegant form I saw in Luke's eyes how they glowed beholding my body, as I peeled my shirt off. He took a deep breath, sinking into the heat of the moment that built between us, becoming our very world.

* * *

**Luke's POV**

He was truly beautiful with skin white as alabaster, smooth like marble, not cold but warm and alive, like a living work of art preserved for all time in some ancient Grecian statue. My tanned hands on his white skin created such a contrast in tones, my sinews thick and muscled while his are trimmer and thin. If I was Strength, then he was Elegance meeting in two separate forms, wanting to meld as I beheld him for the first time completely bare from the waist up, like some dream come alive in the flesh. His long silky locks tumbled down in free-flowing strands, like waterfalls that turned to air. I relished the feel of a few fine brown tresses in my hard-calloused hands, rough from years of wielding the sword.

He wrapped his long slim fingers around my shorter, stronger ones, gliding diagonally across a scar on his chest, up brushing the dusky pink skin of nubs, reminding me of two flower petals cast on a white canvas of snow, I likened to his skin. He ran my fingers over them then paused, looking down.

A placid, but calm expression graced his lovely, angular face. "Luke, when a person gets like this, you notice that other things happen as well," he began in a soft, controlled voice, speaking gently.

I nodded, swallowing hard. It amazed me he could have an infinite amount of patience when he wanted, never getting angry, hardly perturbed the whole time I've known him. He became the mentor I always wanted in Van but could never find, a person I cherish now more than I ever could Van, who cared from the bottom of his heart in his own special unique way, when he saved me before the Council for my crimes against Malkuth since I was to blame for Akzeriuth.

"I felt something like that too, Jade," I whispered, running my lips down the trunk of his neck, into the fine curve of his shoulder, well muscled though not bulging.

His soft warm breath heated my forehead with my lips down on his tensing shoulder, the taut muscle beneath reacting to my touch as he flexed and his hair tickled my face.

"Those other parts of the body react, not only a man's erection but all of it, just as the seventh fonon is not separate from the first through sixth fonons, but born from fusing with memory particles," he tried to explain, blushing in a rare sweet moment, unsure how to say the whole body gets aroused at once, not just one's erogenous zones.

"Yeah, I get it," I laughed. "In a rather scientific way. You really studied too much, didn't you four-eyes?" I teased.

"And you, barely Luke, not knowing ancient Ispanian," he jested back, his merry red eyes twinkling and deep.

"Yeah, Jade," I chuckled, feeling silly. "So why's it important to know how the rest of one's body reacts?"

"Because it affects your whole sexual experience," he said, as a matter-of-factly, sighing.

"You're annoyed, aren't you? You don't have to do this if you don't want to," I replied, feeling my spirits sink.

"No, I'm not." He shook his head, his lips curling to a soft chiding smile. "I'm thinking how best you'd understand, because it's as if I were explaining to a…child."

"I know I'm not as smart as I could be," I beat myself up again.

"Stop blaming yourself, Luke. I _will_ get mad if you keep complaining about things you have yet to learn," he scolded, his tone growing slightly harsher.

"…Sorry." I said nothing else the rest of the time, only listened as his breathing deepened, when he took my hand back down his chest, stopping at his waist on the bed.

"Do you remember what happened after I touched you a bit, and a wonderful feeling went through you?" he put it in a way that made sense to my elementary understanding.

"I made a mess on you, I didn't mean to, cause I wasn't expecting it," I recalled, my sight fixed down from his face, at his hands over mine above his lap. I didn't want to see his expression, if any sign of anger twisted his beautiful face.

"And did that…shall we call it…substance, ever come from your body at a time when it was changing?" Jade pressed further on, his calm gaze regarding me thoughtfully though I dared not look up.

I nodded, keeping my visage down. "Yeah, on the sheets of my bed, my pajamas, everything was a mess at times, when I had dreams about Guy. I was so embarrassed I told the maid who looked after me not to say anything, but she tried to tell me what I was going through was normal for my age. It still happens sometimes once in a while. I remember Natalia and Guy went through similar changes, but we never really talked about it, living up in that stuffy upper class setting."

"Its normal people don't discuss those things from embarrasment," he explained further.

"What about you, Jade, it doesn't bother you?" I asked.

"No, nothing does, including this." He chuckled, amused at my questions. "Though it can be _a little_ embarrassing, even for me. Those things that happened are normal as you grow. Though women's experiences differ. I'm sure you can ask Natalia, as she's your childhood friend."

"Hell no, I won't have her beat me up like Anise," I retorted, glancing up, scowling.

"Because you acted rather immaturely," Jade laughed, recalling.

"Damn it, just shut up," I hissed.

"About what?" he feigned, shrugging.

"N-Nothing," I muttered, giving up.

"Your body's already become an adult's, now your mind is too," he assured gently, taking my hands back in his, steadied by his strong, supportive touch. "It doesn't matter if you're an original or a replica, you're still a human being, and at one point in life, this change happens as our bodies and minds grow."

His soft red gaze drew my eyes back up in his as he whispered, "So it's okay, Luke. Everyone grows in their own time like a flower when it blooms. When we first start thinking about someone we like, its natural what you experienced, having a wet dream like that. That's just the way we're made, its instinct you could say," he said with a tone that soothed my fears. "And when you're awake, thinking about that person you like, touching them in that special way, you feel a powerful bond."

"Did you and His Majesty…share that when you were younger?" I asked, still shy, recalling their intimate friendship.

"He helped me understand those things I'm helping you understand now. He was the first person to tell me it was okay. You could say that's why we remained friends onto our adult years," Jade's warming tone calmed me. "Even now as seniors ready to retire," he added with a laugh. "Why, Luke, look just how frail we've become. Perhaps we'll even share the same grave."

"You and His Majesty!?" How could he say with a morbid thing with a smiling countenance, then again this is Jade. "I thought you meant with me?"

"Well, if you'd like to, just let me know, and I'll let the coroner reserve a joint plot," he added rather pleasantly. "In fact Peony and I went on our first date in a cemetery."

I gasped; nearly falling off the edging of the sagging bed my frame barely clung to.

"Did you actually believe me, dear?" he broke out in a sly smile, capturing me in his arms.

I sighed at a loss of words, letting him overtake me, surrendering to his touch. I can't figure out how he's managed to creep past my defenses. Is this what being in love does to you, giving the object of your affections power over your very soul, when you bear them your entire being? I wish things could go back to the way they used to be, before I knew him, opened up, at least he couldn't hurt me. What a fool I was falling in love with him of all people. I couldn't blame the Score since I existed outside it, only myself the idiot I truly am.

"I don't know what to believe or do, it's that same feeling as when I left my manor for the first time. Its scary cause its new now, as it was then, facing something you never thought would happen," I admitted, hiding my head in his bare chest, laying on my side snuggled up to him, listening to the beating of his heart, a thump-thump that stilled me through to my soul. "This being in love thing…"

"It's okay not to know. That's why I'm here to teach you." His arm above me around my shoulder he lifted to my cheek stroking it with his hands.

"I don't get you, Jade, being all nice," I shivered protesting, closing my eyes, having to admit how he held me and caressed me felt rather good. "You'd usually yell at me if I asked you to explain, or would send me off to Guy. Are you sure you're feeling well?"

"Unfortunately to your disappointment, just fine," Jade's snide remark bit in, softening as he further stroked my cheek down along my jaw. "Do you think Luke, what you see of a person when you first meet them is all they really are?" His crimson eyes, glowing an eerie but lovely shade of red searched me deep inside.

"No," I answered after a pause, trying to return the words he sought inside me. "It's just that since I've gotten to know you, this is the first time I've seen you act kind, or try to."

"Are you saying it's not in my nature?" he prodded, tilting my chin up on the pillow our heads rested, shifting closer to me so our faces met a hair's breath apart. "Just as it's in yours not to grow?"

"Alright, it is but you hide it so well," I gave in, trembling as I felt his warm breath hit my lips, his lovely white face take up my entire spinning vision. "I didn't think you'd care if one of us, out of our group really died. You acted so cold, indifferent, it's still hard for me to accept you have this side to…you."

"Just as I didn't believe you could really change, Luke," he returned, with a rare honest smile slipping through, brushing his lips to mine. "I'll be honest, Luke. I was myself not to fond during the time we met in Engeve, especially after Akzeriuth. In your mistake of taking thousands of lives in any instant, I saw my foolish youthful self in you, hating it, realizing I came only to despise myself. As I saw you change Luke, I saw myself grow inside you, our hearts becoming one. That's why I've let you see a part of me the world doesn't think exists."

"Does it hurt, being so alone, Jade?" I whimpered, cupping his cheek in my hand, drawing us even closer with our lips barely brushing. "I felt like that before Akzeriuth, thinking Master Van was the one person who really cared, and when it said I mattered, it touched something inside me, making me want to cry."

"That's how I feel when you say, 'I love you, Jade,'" he reflected with a bittersweet tone, shifting his arm under my neck, tilting it so our mouths pressed in the slowest and deepest of searing kisses. "You've touched and found a part of me not even His Majesty has, the person I once considered closest. He always believed Nebilim's death wasn't my greatest loss, but what died inside me while I lived, but you were the one that reached inside me and brought it back to life, some sense of feeling, actually caring like I used to before Nebilim died, I never thought possible. That's why you saw me become the cynical person you first met."

"Jade, I misjudged you, you were hurting the most out of everyone, though you always it by smiling, like how I felt hurt causing all those peoples deaths," I cried, winding both my arms around him, pressing my chin down over his strong supportive shoulder. "So the least I can do is to show you how I feel, like how you showed me, though I don't really understand what this stuff's about…"

"It's really quite simple," Jade mused, taking one of my hands behind his back, guiding it down to his waist. "By touching someone in that special way, helping them reach that point where those wonderful sensations rush through, which is called an orgasm that you experienced, you grow closer in a way only you two can share."

I could tell by the cynicism lacing his voice he really didn't believe what he said, that this whole activity was really a way to achieve physical pleasure, nothing more in his rational mind, but he said this for my sake, painting reality in some kind way that truly didn't exist, because to him I'm some lost little creature, still searching for my sense of self worth.

"It's why I'm explaining those things to you now, that we may share them and grow," he pressed further, hooking my fingers inside the waist of his pants wearing that same gentle expression as if he said what he meant.

"You don't mean it, do you? How can I tell if you're honest, if you're not out to just use me like others do in relations?" I declined, taking my hand back up over his heart, as if I could enter inside.

"The truth is that you don't, Luke," he replied, clasping my hand over his heart. "By exploring my body as I did yours, you open yourself up to the possibility of feeling hurt, maybe used. After all, where's the fine line in the human psyche dividing feeling from fact? Its precisely why it can't be found, I've distanced myself from my emotions, embracing logic instead."

"You're right, we can't tell, just as we can't know everything simply cause we're human," I agreed wistfully in pain, feeling his heartbeat thump through my hand held over.

"The fact you understand the depth of what I've said shows me further you've grown," he admitted, wrapping his fingers around mine down into my palm. "If you keep growing like this Luke, I might have a hard time making those jabs."

He paused at the sounds of Guy and Ion awakening in the room next door, muffled through the thick partition of wall that divided us.

"I believe our friends are finally back," he added offhanded, hiding a subtle grin, releasing his hold around my hand. "We shall continue this another time, shan't we? After all a flame that burns too bright, burns too quick, should it not last through the night, just as your feelings for me through our journey."

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: I need to warn readers in advance of a violent scene during the battle with Kaiser Dist, so it won't catch anyone off guard. This chapter ends on a cliff hanger, but don't worry, Luke will pull through and Jade will save him.

* * *

Chapter 10

**Luke POV**

"Guy!" I cried, rushed to his side, throwing myself on his groaning, shifting form like a child embracing its parent after so long an absence, all pain melted to joy, as if the very sun seemed to smile through the mist once clouding the child's darkened mind.

Guy became my sunshine, his sweetness pouring forth in his smile, widening into his sun-bronzed cheeks, tinged red from the blood rushing beneath, popping out like apples in his cheeks as he smiled, the ardor there reflected in his dancing blue eyes, opening like a patch of azure sky when the shrouding clouds open a spot, with a single sunbeam penetrating through to bath the land below. If I was a child cast down in that land, then Guy's eyes and smile was the sunbeam streaming through, warming me in his love.

A tinge of emotion rushed to my face in heated cheeks, alight in my large green eyes, racing in my heart pulsing through, beating so hard I swore it'd burst from my very chest, if it could leap into Guy and hug him.

"Hey Luke, I'm okay," his deep voice lilted over, yet also very worn, weighed by the memories of some trauma that surfaced in his mind, so agonizing Tear chanted a fonic hymn to heal him in his sleep. Violet shadows made themselves known below his eyes, when he stepped into the sun next to an open window by his bed, revealing the sorrow that sparkled in his sapphire eyes, even as he smiled to wrap me in his heart.

"Don't lie," I sniffled, burying my face in his shoulder as he held me in the mist of a delicious breeze blowing in, twisting around us as if to cloak us. "I must have done something to make you suffer, want to hate me. Its my fault you hated me so much you wanted to kill me."

My very words bit in my conscious like a dagger, which Guy try to pull speaking tender with affection, resting my chin on his shoulder. "If was your father that killed my family, servants, everything I loved, so I swore I'd make him taste the same pain I suffered, by killing those he held dear. But that changed the day I met you, Luke, this dear 10-year old like a newborn would could neither walk nor talk, looking to me for love."

"And you stopped living for revenge," Jade commented, looming over behind us.

Even his icy countenance and narrow cold eyes, that once glowed a frightening blood hue, warmed in my presence as if I were his sun, bringing out the affection I basked in when it was the two of us alone. "You've changed Gailardia Galan, of the House of Count Gardios's heart as well," he observed, with a contemplative, almost kind smile peeking through his tightly drawn lips, on the verge of curling to an honest, direct smile.

"Just as you've changed mine," he said, fixing his crimson eyes on me that twinkled like rubies drawing me in, making me blush in his gaze filling my soul, that sent chills up my spine, as I recollected that moment we shared, when I experienced what he called an 'orgasm,' that wave of good feeling, beyond anything I'd ever felt at Jade's lingering touch.

Even now, the fire of his touched raced through in memory, coming alive on my skin dancing down my chest, playing down in the valley of thighs, ignited my arousal, a protesting prisoner aching in my clothes.

Guy released me, breaking out into a hearty laugh, clear like the silver peal of bells at my reaction. "Well, I see your deep in thought, Luke," chuckled he, jerking my attention back to his merry face.

"My, thinking that hard like that is quite strenuous on you." A faint smile played off Jade's lips as if to mock me, concealing real love that burned, crystallized deep down in his soul, in his touch I felt, escaping in his words when he said, _you have a beautiful heart, Luke. When you tell me you love me, it really hurts because through you, I find myself living again, when I thought my heart died all those years._

"What's going on?" murmured Natalia at a loss, furrowing her brows in thought.

"The Colonel will have to ask Tear to heal Luke if his brain explodes, cause he's thinking too hard," Anise chuckled, skipping between Jade and I, planting herself firmly between as if to rush to our defense. "You know how dumb he can be, right Natalia?" she jested, urging me with a sidelong glance to follow.

"Hey, what?" I growled, jumping in.

"Oh Luke, as your childhood friend I worry. You know if all a girl hears you talk about is her body, you won't even get your first kiss," Natalia sighed, shaking her head, glancing quickly at Tear behind.

Tear's azure eyes narrowed, casting an indignant glare, she remarked, "The very idea is absurd," in a low cold voice, turning in a gesture that hardened her manner, really indifferent in feeling. "We should be heading to St. Binah," she added almost formally.

Anise broke into a giggle, Guy smiled, Jade grinned inwardly, while Natalia watched feeling sorry for me.

"What're doing? Come on," Tear almost hissed, storming out.

"Damn, that was cold." Guy shook his head, laying a hand on my shoulder.

"Yesss, it was," chimed Jade, with a rising note of pleasure apparent in his voice that drew everyone's attention to his sly, amused expression, widening to smile, almost menacing. "If you say it sounds like I'm having fun, in fact I have been, more than you could ever…_imagine_."

"You're horrible…" Guy muttered.

"Oh, I'm terribly hurt," Jade mused, grinning at me.

"Kiss, kiss," whispered Anise, twiddling her thumbs, knowing full went what went on between Jade and I unseen.

"Shut up!" I hissed, bolting out.

Natalia inquired if everything was okay with me, to which Guy replied I was being like my old self before Akzeriuth. Then they helped Ion out of bed and the entire group trekked a day to Rotelro Bridge, disembarking on the Tartarus to St. Binah. Going south hugging the coast, we cut in east along the Fubras River like a canal through the continent, to avoid a full southward journey round the cape by Kaitzur Naval Port and Coral Castle. Jade spent much of his time out on the ship's bow, casting artes to blow any obstacles such as boulders along the shore in the narrowing waterway, so we wouldn't run aground damaging the ship. Guy had a team of fon-tech engineers back at Grand Chokma remove over half her hull, that she might navigate with ease, still lamentable she lost her sails and grand outer hull, leaving her a shell, with only her plain inner hull, the remnants of her once formidable glory.

Ion rested soundly in one of the cabins below, having exhausted himself with that Daathic fonic arte in removing Guy's seal. Guy himself plagued with weariness, pushed himself ahead, the only one having sufficient skill to maneuver in treacherous, churning waters, as the Fubras twisted in rapid turns we recalled from once crossing it, her whitewater seeming to hiss in our ears. During this whole time Anise remained dutifully by poor Ion's side, declining Tear and Natalia's assistance if she needed help, wanting time to herself.

"Anise, what's the matter?" I entered the same cabin I first entered on the Tartarus when I first met Jade in the Cheagle woods, a utilitarian space with rude metal bunks lining the low steel walls, glinting metallic from the room's single light, swaying to and fro suspended like a pendulum from the ship's twisting course, her hull groaning as if she shot up ahead on the Fubras.

"Luke," she sniffled, crouched over beside one of the several steel tables used for conferences, taking up what little space the claustrophobic cabin had, aside the bunks clinging to its walls, the one Ion was in a foot above the floor, with a curtain partially drawn over.

"I know how you feel, you've been crushed by the weight of something you've done, so please, don't let it eat you up and destroy you like things have done to me," I said gently, kneeling down and placing a hand on her little childish shoulder. "Everyone's been worried every since leaving Keterberg. Guy said you had nightmares about people dying…"

"It's my parents, I'm scared!" she cried, hiding her face in my chest, not even reaching my sleeve in height, still short, a child physically but an adult in her heart. "And look at poor Ion, I'm afraid he'll die from using that arte…"

"No, Anise, its my fault, if my father hadn't killed Guy's family, his anger wouldn't of come through in that curse and—"

She broke away, frowning at me through her tear stained face. _Just when I see he's gotten so close to the Colonel, if I destroy their love because of what I told Dist, I don't know what'd I'd do. Would the only sense of family I've had fall apart? I hate being a spy! I can never really be Luke's friend cause of that._

"I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, I don't wanna marry a guy that mopes around, even if he's rich," Anise murmured, wiping away her tears. "Besides, I'm more concerned about you and the Colonel."

I blushed a fierce some shade of scarlet.

"It's obvious, Luke, that your struggling inside, thinking less than others cause you're a replica, that you're not good enough for the Colonel to love you," Anise said, staring me straight me up straight in the eye. "Guy and I talked about it. So stop acting like the old pathetic Luke thinking he's no good. You're like my brother and…I'm tired of seeing you hurt. Guy is too. He wouldn't of said he loved if he didn't care. Ion saw that love and that's why he risked his life to undo that awful seal."

I only listened, nodding somberly, amazed at her maturity. She's already grown into a young woman, in her heart beyond her years.

"Love is the reason we do things, isn't it?" she posed, slipping the curtain back, glancing at Ion to check his current condition. "It's why the Colonel risked his life to save you back in Keterberg during that blizzard. It's why he stood up against the entire Council that wanted to execute you for Akzeriuth. Imagine his entire career, everything he risked to save you."

"Including his honor as a man in his profession," I added, dropping my solemn visage.

"That's stupid! He did all those things cause he loves you, and if you hold back like those who cling to the Score, you're no better than them sticking to what you think is safe," she whimpered, taking Ion's limp hand in hers. "Ion believes the Score is one of many paths, that change is possible. He represents to me that hope. You represent that same hope to the Colonel. So don't give up. Tell him 'I love you' as many times as you need to, until he says it back, not only for your sake, but Guy's. He's really your best friend, caring about you with all his heart. Ion knows it too, so you should thank him when he recovers."

"Anise, thank you. You've become my friend like Guy," I said, my joy spilling through in a smile that warmed Anise's very heart, wrapping her in the sunshine Guy wrapped me in that healed my very soul.

"To be needed, it almost hurts." She smiled sadly releasing Ion's hand. _It hurts the more I'm a spy._

"Go take a break. I'll watch over Ion, okay?" I prodded, helping her to her feet.

"Alright, thanks." Anise smiled radiantly at me over her shoulder in a glow that lit up the very room, making its rude metal interiors alive, almost welcoming like a cozy home instead of a cold, austere ship.

"Luke…" Ion stirred, his large green doe-like eyes fluttering open, so full of love I could melt in their tender gaze, his long tresses tied in front, tumbling past his shoulders down his snowy robes, pure like his very heart. "I heard what you and my Guardian said. Forgive me," he begged kindly, his breath raspy and constitution rendered quite weak as his gaze flickered and high voice faltered. "All of us know how you feel about Jade. The truth is, as a replica, I'm nothing more than a mere replacement. But you, Luke, have the chance to be more than that, a real human being through Jade's love. If he can love you the way he would an original, then perhaps it'd prove we replicas are more than replacements."

"Ion, don't talk that way. You almost died for Guy's sake!" I cried, wanting to shake his frail body out of rage.

"It's the least I can do. I know I'm not that helpful." His childish countenance clouded in fatigue, growing worse.

"That's not true, so stop acting like we're not as good as our originals."

He smiled meekly, but wistfully. "You don't believe its true, Luke. So please, prove to both of us it is. I know if you can love and be loved like an original human being, then perhaps we replicas hold some…worth." His eyes shut and head fell on its side.

"Ion!" I cried, fear shooting through.

"The Fon Master will be okay. He's merely lost conscious due to exhaustion from a stress his body isn't used to, " a collected voice observed, steady in cadence and deep, musical to my ears like a pleasant measured hum, echoing in, seeming to reverberate off the low metal walls, deepening its timbre and resonance, only sweeter to my soul.

"Jade…" His name caught in my throat, rendering me helpless like some dreamer coming awake, discovering the dreamed he dreamed to be real, finding it too wonderful, to sink back in sleep, haunted forever in rest.

Every time I saw him it became that fantastic dream, as I slip into a reverie, possessed by some ecstasy that made everything sweet like a summer's day after the rain in a rose garden, where their delicious scent permeates the dew soaked air in bliss. That wondrous feeling he excited only felt better with each step he took, sending tingles through every fiber from the core of my mortal being. He knew it, with a mischievous smile twisting his lips, making his narrow red eyes behind his glasses playful, an almost innocent child coming forth I might embrace, if reality hadn't jerked me back in the click of his thigh high boots tapping the metal floor, drawing closer.

"I heard what you, Ion and Anise discussed," Jade noted with ease, striding by with grace and intelligence I could only admire.

An air of bashfulness fell over, which was my want of his affection, feeling unworthy. I suppose I am either a romantic dreamer with lofty ideals, thinking I can save the world, even dying like some martyr, or an utter fool falling in the pit of his feelings, when Jade said we can't even tell fact from feeling in our limited human minds.

"So what?" I retorted, getting sick of his eavesdropping, his need to control me cause of my inexperience. If he pretended he cared, simply for the thrill of some power trip, then I could never forgive his heart.

"I do these things out of safely, because I can never quite predict the Fon Master's erratic behavior, nor yours," he paused, rooted to his spot by Ion's bed and I, settling in place with his hands in his uniform pockets, his eyes closed for a moment, gaze turned down on Ion and I contemplating, his pale gorgeous visage taking in our psyches with a wisdom beyond my knowing. "I observe in both you and he self-destructive behavior as replicas, as having this many suicidal people really gets on my nerves."

"Well, Mr. Perfect, you're not a damn replica, you wouldn't know how we—" I started.

His penetrating gaze full of power silenced me, like a torrent of thunder poured forth in his eyes.

"It's clear from this point Anise has leaked information on our whereabouts to someone connected with Mohs," he stated, lowering his voice, seizing me in its strength brimming through. "We're about to face a formidable foe, most like one of the god-generals once we arrive in St. Binah. Many peoples' lives will be at stake, so we must do our best to stay calm and evacuate them. Is that clear, Luke? I tell you this because you've taken on the role of leader, as your influence extends over others, in how we work as a team."

"I understand, Jade. Thank you." I wanted so badly to reach out, stroking his cheek, running my fingers through his silky curtain of hair, gazing into his lovely red eyes that read my soul, exploring the sinews of his body in taut curves, a slim torso, yet well muscled in the ripples down his stomach, cut pectorals, traveling further down his thighs in those special places I longed to touch, letting him know how I feel as I stroked him, grasping the most intimate part of his being, bringing him to that climax when wonderful feelings flood over, lost in the entirety of my soul.

He gave me that experience when I opened my whole heart. I wanted to do the same to him, if he had the courage to do so, believing that everything would be okay when he did, knowing I wouldn't hurt him, though he thought the possibility still existed as in any given relationship. But he's given me the chance to prove I'm more than a replica through his feelings for me, as Ion spoke of, and I wanted to give him a chance back to prove he can be himself with me without holding back. How else can I truly love him from the bottom of my heart unless he does the same in return?

When two people stand on opposite sides of a chasm by a seemingly invisible gap, if their feelings for each other can form a bridge manifesting, when they walk out on open air in the middle, then the chasm they thought was there is really an illusion, because their love overpowered all obstacles. I want to meet Jade in the middle of the chasm, racing forth on air, only if he believes he can truly love, meeting me in the middle, we can run to the ends of the world. If he doesn't, then I'll find my dream is shattered, and I'll plunge into the chasm far below.

"After evacuating St. Binah, once all signs of danger are over, I'll continue where I left off explaining sexuality, those changes experienced in adolescence as we grow," he whispered in my ear, so Ion couldn't hear if he was conscious. "Those are but many facets of the human experience. We mustn't let our passion distract us, especially when so many lives are at stake. Its why I'm holding of, hopefully, without offense."

He spoke sensibly but his words banished every last drop of blood in my cheeks. Having seen my presence of mind lost, he strode forward with the smoothness of a dancer, his hands on my shoulders stilling my trembling frame.

"Focus, Luke," he commanded, releasing his hold.

"I know," I acknowledged, searching him deeply.

He blessed me with a light, chaste kiss to my lips, smiling as he turned before gliding out, his eyes twinkling over his shoulders, shaded by a few loose bangs, falling over his face around his snowy neck. I bid him farewell with a slight nod, sighing inwardly till the time we'd meet once again.

Just as he left the Tartarus jarred forward, sending the tables in the cabin crashing if they weren't nailed down. The single light overhead swung wildly, with the ship's lurch jerking Ion wide-awake.

"Luke, let me help you with St. Binah," he whispered in strained tones, still exhausted from having used his Daathic artes on Guy.

"Dammit, no," I cried, kneeling by his side.

But desperation sown across his face implored me.

"Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you," I gave in, helping him to his feet, supporting him with my arms under his, treading uneasily out.

As I struggled with Ion down the hall outside, Anise and Guy raced up to Ion's side lending him their support.

"Ion!" exclaimed Anise, fear churning in her face, she hugged him tight to her little body as if he were her child or the life growing inside. "You don't look so good, you should really rest. Same with you, Guy." Her gaze shot up at him burning with desperation.

"I'm fine, now let's save St. Binah," said Guy, squeezing the pommel of his blade, ready to draw it in the Albert style, masking whatever fatigue Anise saw through to, poised to spring out as soon as the hatch door opened.

"We have to push ourselves, even if we're tired," the Fon Master clinging to his Guardian to stand added meekly. "I'll be fine, Anise. If St. Binah falls, things will be a lot worse."

Natalia informed us we reached St. Binah, making a noble declaration about saving St. Binah on behalf of Kimlasca's true will, to which Jade replied, "My, my, what fervor, what passion," with Natalia retorting, "Isn't it an honor to save your people?" Jade shrugged saying he'd rather not get involved and Natalia nearly choked him, had we not pulled her off and he apologized quite amused. Once in St. Binah, we visited the Malkuth Base, with Glenn and the Elder McGovern arguing bitterly about the city's current state. We gave them word from Emperor Peony to evacuate, helping the citizens' file out. Just when thing proceeded smoothly, something happened that changed my bond with Jade forever, a tale only he can tell.

* * *

**Jade's POV**

Impassioned with enthusiasm Luke darted to and fro carrying the elderly on his back outside the city. I joked with Anise he was still essentially an idiot, but a likeable one since Akzeriuth. Tear and I flanked the city's arched entrance, its doors thrown wide open, hustling citizens out when a wall of wind gusted straight at us. The buildings in the style of quaint English cottages shivered violently, some collapsing with people inside and death screams echoing out, above the snarling wind. An earthquake! The land was already collapsing. In a moment described only as apocalyptic, the earth groaned yawning wide open in a chasm that split right down the city. The convulsing ground, a madness gone wild with rage, knocked loose a few cobblestones once part of the town square spiraling down. Terror stole in the expressions of soul teetering on the other before the chasm.

Swallowing her fear, Tear raced ahead jumping over the gulf a good 20 feet in length, soaring through the air, limning an arc that barely reached, clinging on with her gloved hands to some cobblestones falling in. Glenn McGovern hoisted her up, but before she sang her hymns, she cried, "Jade, use your artes to form an ice bridge, with earth over, so we can send as many people over as possible. I'll save those I can with my hymns when the land falls to the Qliphoth!"

"Dying as Luke once wanted? You fool," I hissed.

"Do it, Jade!" Luke cried, pulling up a child that clung on with only one hand, plunging in if Luke hadn't saved him.

Cursing to myself, I closed my eyes preparing to cast the artes of ice and ice together. Ion raced to my side, in no condition himself, focusing his artes with mine. Anise nearly shrieked at the sight of Tear having jumped and poor Ion passing out. Guy and Natalia froze in fear.

"Good work, Anise, I've come to get the Fon Master," a lilting voice purred out behind from the arched entrance, amidst the dreadful scream of one person falling in, as ground moaned out from aftershocks.

"Dist, how could you? At a time like this," wailed Anise, dropping Ion whom Luke seized, supporting.

His body wracked with pain, Ion struggled to cast his artes with mine. I still focused with him, hoping Luke, Anise, Natalia, and Guy could handle him on their own. With the tremors still rumbling through, people screamed loosing control. Natalia and Guy dashed away ushering the crying stream through the gates. Luke lunged for Ion passing out, about to plunge down to his death in the chasm if Luke hadn't saved him.

"Ion!" shouted Anise, crawling to his side.

With Natalia and Guy lost in the crush outside, Tear stranded across the chasm that left Luke, Anise and I with an unconscious Ion possibly injured. From what remained of the parting crowd trickling through, a low heavy form glided near, and the expression of the one who rode his chair rife with glee. I made him suffer by killing Nebilim. This was his vengeance in a dish served so cold it disgusted even me.

"Now, hand him over," the god-general demanded, looming above on his chair, with a grin plastered to his face, a mere façade for the pain buried inside, his inner child lost wandering in the darkness of Nebilim's death.

"No!" Anise cried, springing to her feet, glaring up. "You used to be a nice person who made Tokunaga after I met you in Daath. What happened to my friend?"

"'Friend?'" Dist repeated, dismissing it with a wave of his slender wrist. "No amount of friends matter if Professor Nebilim isn't here. She loved me!"

"Then honor her memory by loving those you hold dear," Anise cried, kneeling by Ion's side. "Please stop this, Dist, my parents are all that I have."

"They don't matter. Neither do those worms here too," Dist sighed, sinking back in his chair. "If I bring the Fon Master, Mohs will finally give me the Professor's replica data, and when I've revived her, she'll say, 'Oh dear Sapphir, I missed you so much.'"

"Will you remain a lost child, living in the past forever?" I questioned, my concentration broken in casting my artes. I had to dispose of him quickly and form that bridge before another quake sent the land Tear stood on spiraling below. At least 200 people were stranded and Tear could only protect 10 at most with her hymns.

"Shut up, Jade. You're the one who's given up on the teacher who loved us," a pang of pain rang out from Dist, swooping lower in his chair only feet off the ground right in front of my face.

"You're a fool chasing a dream. If you love truly her, then let her soul rest in peace. I've learned that death is not the greatest loss in life, but the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live, Dist," I proclaimed, stepping forward.

"I've always hated Peony's nonsense," my old friend hissed, crouched over his chair, seething. "He took your side after Professor Nebilim died. He even stole your heart, when I, Saphir your best friend loved you."

"I've never considered you my lover, nor will I. The Saphir I knew died long ago pursing a foolish dream," I countered, holding my ground. I shrugged, sighing. "Besides, I don't know any Jade who has such poor taste in lovers."

"Shut up!" he cried again, his arms failing wildly like an angry child's. "Now you've hurt me again by choosing that replica over me." He glared at Luke burning, ready to spring out and kill him.

"We don't know how long the land will last, Jade, hurry!" hollered Tear from across the chasm, her voice dying in the distance.

"Dammit," I growled.

"How amusing, my old Jade's getting mad. When you got mad as a child, you'd go out killing all those poor monsters for the sake of your artes, dismembering the organs you liked, saying it was a shame you couldn't do it to people," Dist mused, raising a hand to his face.

"Colonel, it can't be," whimpered Anise, terrified.

"He speaks the truth. Now, get Ion out of here. We don't know what injuries he's sustained and he could very well die," I warned, gesturing her to go.

"No way, the man I fell in love with…" Luke wanted to cry at a loss for words. "I didn't think you really did that."

"How does it feel to be alone like me?" the god-general taunted, throwing his head back laughing out of pain, out of malice, out of all he once held dear, from a heart long shattered I found its existence only one of pure despair. "You killed Professor Nebilim, not even trying to bring her back. That really broke my heart, Jade. But what hurt more was that I loved you, and you couldn't care less. I'll kill this replica you cherish, then take Ion, so you'll taste the same pain I have. Come now, Kaiser Dist!"

I felt ashamed that the darkness of my soul spilled out in Dist's words, marring the image of perfection Luke once beheld me in, worshipping me like some god, whose servant he was deriving pure pleasure from pleasing his deity, as I was the father of fomicry, and he a child born, like the soul and its maker. Luke blinked hard, fighting back tears, his fiery green eyes alight, crying out, _I don't care what he says, I still love you and I won't die until I know you love me back, my dearest Jade. Only then can I give my life in peace to save those who live._

Those arose a wave of panic in the screams of people outside, a few stragglers left behind from Guy and Natalia's departure. Anise's face went pale at the horrid, mechanized contraption bounding in, crushing a person alive in its path, in a sickening crunch of bones and entrails staining its path in blood, painting once pure white cobblestone a deep crimson red. Luke nearly hurled at the sigh, recalling the death cries of the Oracle Knight he killed aboard the Tartarus long ago as his blade plunged right through.

"Luke, get a grip, one of us has to get Ion out. He's unconscious, if he's trampled, he'll surely die," she implored, shaking Luke back to his senses.

"Hold Ion and protect him, I'll toss you two over underneath this thing to the gate, then run out before it catches you," Luke devised, hurdling Anise wrapped in a ball around Ion, swiftly beneath Dist's shattering contraption, narrowly missing its main body above by an inch, grazing Anise's back. She wailed landing roughly but shielded Ion, jumping to her feet, limping off with his body over her tiny shoulders in pain.

"Damn, Ion's gone," howled Dist, glaring indignantly from a safe distance further up in the air. "Kaiser Dist, crush that wretched replica! With him dead, I'll be the only one Jade can love."

The clumsy robot waddled like some mechanical duck, bounding as it lunged for Luke, firing a barrage of lasers from its ill-placed gun ports, hitting trees, rubble from the wall or entrance, whatever the hell it could. Instead of reacting, Luke's sight darted back to the trail of blood in its wake and the remnants of mangled entrails, coming alive in the horror sown across his face, as he cried out experiencing a deeper source of trauma than having killed the Oracle Knight, the tragedy of Akzeriuth wondering what those people felt when they died, seeing a poor civilian trampled helplessly just now. The trauma surfaced in full force triggering what I feared might be a breakdown in the mist of battle.

As a trained soldier I steeled myself against such pain, killing my feelings if necessary. Soldiers are professional killers in the name of defending their countries, willing to die for their beliefs that conviction made necessary or else our sanity in us would rebel. Poor Luke wasn't still wasn't trained to handle that, though he could fight to save his life. I dived at him nimbly like a cat on its prey, positioning myself over. He had curled up in a ball down in his feet, closed his eyes whimpering before he could even reach for his sword.

In the twinkling of an eye, I materialized my spear out of my arm with lightning speed faster than one could blink. A metallic clang resounded from a laser it shot out reflected off my spear singeing a nearby tree. It exploded in a brilliant burst of fire flashing indigo, scorching whatever ground it touched. Luke gasped when his eyes shot open, writhing with wonder at the light sizzling over, coughing from the dust-choked air his poor lungs inhaled.

"Jade," he huffed, gripping his hilt in vain, too petrified to move. "I'm scared cause I can't do what you told me, to control my feelings no matter how hard I try like you. That poor man died crying out to be saved…"

"Stay down!" I cried, pushing Luke aside, rolling out of the robot's mechanical foot that came crashing down a good few tons in weight. I could see how its sheer mass crushed a human body swiftly.

"Damn him," Luke hissed, about to unsheathe his sword strapped to his waist in back.

"You're in no condition, Luke, traumatized like that," I commanded, knocking the blade he held half unsheathed back in its scabbard behind.

"Now, die!" Dist's voiced echoed out amidst the plumes of smoke, screams of people on the shifting land Tear stood and clang of my spear fending off more shots.

Seeing Luke sink in pain like this tapped in me an inner wellspring of feeling I suppressed all those years, Peony bared touched. A violent torrent, made even more dangerous by being stuffed so deeply, buried far inside in the bottom of my soul, erupted up in an explosion of feeling that burned like hellish fire. My eyes must have truly glowed a ghastly shade of red by outpour of power, judging by the shock I saw on Luke's face, his glowing emerald eyes wide with wonder, fear writhing in their depths and mouth gaping half open, trembling.

In a moment when feeling swallowed all logic, a terrible power stirred in me, blowing out completely the fon slot seal Largo once placed, seething out in my aura that surged about, a vengeful storm that possessed the entirety of my being. The earth became my witness in her clouds parting above as the very heavens opened up, as an electric blue light shot forth in the sky, striking the spot my soul commanded, seeming to ascend to those heavens, I cried, "Tenkou mitsuru tokoro, ware wa ari, Yomi ni mon hikaru tokoro ni nanji ari, Ide yo, kami no ikazuchi!" in the ancient Ispanian tongue, "Sore de owari desu! Indiguneeshon!"

It meant "I who stand at the full light of the heavens commands thee, who opens the gates of hell, come forth divine lightning, this ends now, indignation," as violet lightning struck down Kaiser Dist and a spell circle etched in light formed under my mortal feet.

"Noo! My precious Kaiser Dist," Dist cried, knocked off his chair next to the ground Luke and I stood from flying debris when his contraption was split asunder.

"It was my fault for having let you lived this long. Goodbye, Saphir," I whispered, still possessed with rage beyond my rational self, with the mystic arte I awakened racing, like some inner demon roaming my outer conscious. I plunged the tip of my spear gleaming with death towards Dist's neck with superhuman speed in the region of the jugular vain for a clean and easy kill, just when Luke's arms winding around my legs, propelled like some angel that saved my soul with the touch of his merciful grace.

"No, stop!" Luke's wail pierced the air, seeming to silence the tremulous land itself, still the heavens I commanded, squeezing my body so hard it might burst. "If you kill him you'll become that old self that killed all those monsters, I'll loose the Jade I love. Not for his sake but your humanity…spare him…" Luke's quivering voice died out.

My humanity cried out in Luke's voice, calling me back to the light I lost in Nebilim's death, rediscovered now in Luke. His loving eyes beckoned to the darkness in my soul that threatened to drown me after all those years of pain. His loving heart reached inside returning me to the light, in his arms wrapped around as I collapsed to the ground, sinking on my knees and my spear dematerialized back to the fonons in my body.

"After getting to know you, Jade, I won't loose you like this, understanding the love one feels makes life precious, even if I'm a replica because I found it…through you," his tear choked voice broke out, brimming with love I never thought the human soul could know.

He smiled like an angel with rosy cheeks alight, fallen only from the blood staining his hands at Akzeriuth, when tears glistened in his eyes, streaming down his cheeks like watery diamonds come alive, leaving wet tracks in their wake, making him shiver as if some frost shot through, and I warmed him, becoming his sunshine in my grasp. His fiery mane cut short in thick, clumpy locks was matted about his face, glowing alight with feeling, as the corners of his mouth stretched to a sad smile, his lower lip catching sunlight filtered through smoke from the broken Kaiser Dist. Deep in the pools of his eyes, living emeralds that swam with love, I saw the affection I once experienced from Nebilim that saved my very soul.

It felt odd being loved when loneliness became a friend, cold even in death. That false friend who consumed me I cast away, finding refuge in Luke's soul, whispering, now that my feelings were freed, "I love you, Luke," the first time I uttered those words the first time in life.

* * *

**Luke's POV**

My world transformed that moment born anew in an ecstatic, blissful light, a realm of existence that transcended the pain of this world, where all things born must die, returning to the Planet Storm in Auldrant's memory, released again as that snowy light from the Radiation Gate only to be born again, in an eternal endless cycle of birth and death ever since our world existed. I found this magical plane through Jade's love, knowing if I died, I lived on in his heart, reclaimed by Lorelei in the core. As part of its aggregate sentience composed of seventh fonons, I didn't know if I'd incarnate meeting Jade in some future life, so I poured forth all my feelings in a final kiss, racing across the icy bridge Jade formed with his artes, to save the people of St. Binah, stranded on the other side.

Tear's fonic hymns stabilized that chunk of land from collapsing in, as long as she continued to sing, a soft haunting melody stroking our very souls. I ushered Glenn McGovern and the rest of the citizens up the narrow bridge Jade created and Tear's hymns sustained, only minutes longer since Jade exhausted himself with that wild burst of power. I did this to save Tear because she's the only one as a descendant of Yulia, besides Van, who can lower the Outer Lands through operating the Sephiroth. I'm sure once I'm gone my friends will see I was just a simple replacement for Asch, as perhaps Ion was right.

Two halves of my soul battled inside: the part of me feeling loved by Jade, that sang within when he whispered, _I love you_, saying life is a gift worth living. The darker half swirling over like black mist in my mind drowned that out, echoing, _you saw how that poor man died crushed alive beneath that thing. Imagine now the suffering of thousands at Akzeriuth. You can save them now, if you give them your life._ That darker half was fed by the guilt that plagued me, the scent of death I wore. You could say that scent is the sin one feels when taking human life hanging about your heart, as ravens do circling a medieval battlefield, shrouded in mist feasting on corpses claimed by death.

When Jade said, _I love you_, it was a light piercing the darkness of my soul, but a light not strong enough as I thought of the countless people who'd die if the Outer Lands crashed, and Tear couldn't lower the Sephiroths to save them.

"Tear, you've been like a sister, kind even if I was selfish, though you never showed it on the outside," I begin, embracing her in my arms. "Only one like you wish Yulia's blood can use those Sephiroth to save our world. So you have to live on, find Asch and lower the Outer Lands with him."

"Don't be a fool, Luke," she cried, shaking her head. "You still base your actions on what others say, not trying to think to yourself. If you're thinking about sending me back over the bridge Jade made, leaving us to evacuate the rest of the people, you're never different than Akzeriuth."

"Tear, I can't hold it any longer," Jade shouted over the yawning chasm, loosing focus over his artes from sheer exhaustion, as the icy bridge he formed collapsed. "Luke, idiot!" he scolded, reaching out for me with his hand in the air from the other side helplessly. "Just when I told you I…"

"It's not your fault, Jade," I hollered back, releasing Tear. "You told me how you felt, giving me meaning in my life. But I realized your strength would give out, so I came here to help Tear back, because you two must go on. Tear's used all her power in singing her fonic hymns and in minutes the land will collapse even where you are, Jade."

"You idiot!" Tear echoed Jade's cry bitterly, pain brimming in her eyes under her tangled messy hair. "Can't you even think straight?"

"I am, I see myself clearly." I shook my head, eying her hard. "I know I'm just a replica who found meaning in life cause one loves me, but that doesn't change what I've done. I've realized the weight of what I've carried, that if my dying could bring back Akzeriuth, then I'd be scared…but I'd die. The least I can do to make up for it is by saving you Tear, so the rest of you can save our world and all the life inside it.

"You just told me, Luke, 'Jade, I won't loose you like this, understanding the love one feels makes life precious,' yet here you are ready to throw away your own life," Jade shouted back, a subtle anger creeping into his expression I rarely beheld. "You are selfish thinking you can just die without considering how Tear, Natalia, Guy, Anise, Mieu and I feel. You truly haven't changed thinking you can just die, after I told you 'I love you.'"

"Shut up! I have changed. I'm doing this so you can live on in this beautiful world, cause of everything you mean to me, Jade," my desperate voice echoed back, drowned from the tremors staring up.

"But it wouldn't be as beautiful without you," he reflected, gazing sadly from across the distant chasm. "Because of your beautiful heart."

"I see your feelings for him are strong, to be able to embrace your feelings for a moment in place of logic, you really do love him," Tear observed, addressing Jade, then turning to me. "You'll be hurting the Colonel the most of all of us. Of course, don't think I won't cry, Luke." Her low, controlled voice gave way to rising desperation. "I'll never forgive you, and neither will Jade."

"Tell Jade that I love him, that I love all of you, my friends who've become like my true family." Before Tear could say another word, I grabbed her violently, swept up in my arms, running forward to gain momentum, hurling her as hard as I could so she landed safely on the other side sailing through the air.

I saw a trail of tears sparkling in her wake, creating a rainbow as the sinking sun hit, and tears streaming for the first time down Jade's pale lovely face, taking in for the last time its delicate structure, glowing with youth beyond his years, with lips so soft they feel like silken rose petals, skin so clear I thought of the purest snow, and eyes so red they swallowed my very soul, pools I saw myself drown in, blessed to gaze in during my final moments when the shifting land finally gave way, knowing what I did would help Jade live on as I plunged with St. Binah into the Qliphoth below, down far into the abysmal darkness consuming me like death.

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

**Jade's POV**

"Luke!" Tear cried, reaching out to Luke on the other side of the chasm as he land he stood on begin to crumble, with pieces of rock under St. Binah's cobblestone square flaking off in shards, then larger rocks, finally the size of boulders plunging below. "Is this how you treat those you love?"

"It's precisely because of how I love, what I feel, that all of you have to live on, just like the people of this world. I know you want to say its childish of me to sacrifice myself like this, but the pain's overwhelmed me so much, I didn't know what to do, and I know you can't forgive me, either of you." A sad smile crossed Luke's face for the last time, as if he conceived the sacrifice of his mortal body would atone for his sins of Akzeriuth and its blood staining his hands.

How many times did we tell him that only by living on, having the courage to face the woes committed, could he find the strength in shouldering that burden? The weight of his guilt having burdened him so long, in his current frame of understanding, still a mere child's in comprehending the complexities of reality, could only at this point find absolution in death. I started to understand that replicas felt they existed solely to benefit their originals, by sacrifice if need be necessary. They truly felt from the bottom of their hearts they possessed no soul of their own, that their lives held no inherent dignity, when the truth is simply the fact their alive, each life holds an innate preciousness of his own, as the spark of some sacred conscious.

We called the latest evolution of this consciousness Lorelei, the seventh fonon of time and space, as well as memory, of which Luke is apart, that I see searching for its identity incarnated in Luke. Even if Luke did plunge to the bottom of the Qliphoth, what might kill any ordinary human, he could possibly survive, if Lorelei's conscious awakened within and healed him from the impact. Even if he healed after St. Binah's fall, there was no telling how long the liquefied surface of the miasma would hold the land afloat, with all those noxious vapors rising, and little or no food, just how long could Luke survive?

"Luke, if I were the ruler of a country with people to save, then yes, I'd understand the reasoning behind your actions, approving of it. Gut you're my friend, no more, and to see you throw away your life like this…pains me, I must admit," speaking honestly for once as dread gripped my soul, and I restrained Tear to keep her from jumping over the chasm to reach Luke, much less suicide herself in the fall. "Luke, you must live, because of what you mean to us, to me, I love you, Luke! Does that not give you reason enough to live?"

"Jade! It does," he cried, breaking out in sorrow. "But I…I'm sorry, but I didn't think there was any other way. Please, forgive me. I swear, I'll stay alive until we meet. Believe that I'll live on, as Emperor Peony believed you lived on after Akzeriuth."

"Goodbye, Luke," I sniffled, blinking through my clouded glasses, waving, holding poor Tear's limp body firmly with my other arm, the only restraint stopping the poor healer from throwing herself right over.

By this time she passed out thinking she'd see Luke for the very last time. My heart felt so deeply even if I couldn't reach out like others kindly do, for the ice glazing over my conscious still holds my feelings back. This cold visage, masked by a soft smile, is part of who I am, though deep in my heart I've come to realize I love Luke beyond all words, that Peony's words were right, what died inside me back to life in the feelings I felt for Luke. In that way, he became my angel awakening me from death. Though I have no wings in the metaphorical sense of his kindness, myself more a man of death than anything, the Necromancer, I must save him with every last ounce of strength my mortal frame can bear.

For now, I had to save my own self and Tear, so I could return and find him on the crust of land, which began to sink, if indeed Luke survived that long. It was only the flicker of a moment Tear lost her conscious, composing herself as soon as more tremors reached us.

She rose to her feet, exclaiming, "Colonel, even my fonic hymns won't save us if the area of St. Binah we're in collapses. We must run and live, so Luke's sacrifice isn't in pain, so I can stop my brother Van like I vowed when I came to the Outer Lands. I can't die until then."

I nodded, our gazes darting once last time to the collapsing land Luke stood in, plunging down as a heavy ocean of red mist rolled from the miasma far below in noxious clouds, swallowing Luke in the sea of poisonous gas. Pieces of the land once supporting St. Binah broke off in boulders, the impact of the debris a mile down in the Qliphoth, sending vapors that fizzled up, opening a crater in the land's crust extending at least two miles wide. Some chunks of crust that fell in half a mile long created tidal waves in the mantle the Qliphoth below, more massive and powerful than any tsunami on the Outer Lands, which wipe out entire continents. Even with the powers of the seventh fonon, there was no way in hell Luke could survive, if the land he clung to managed to float, Tear and I realizing the same fate would befall us if we didn't run for our very lives.

The view into the Qliphoth below stunned us like gaping into the entrance to hell, a lot more terrifying than the view from the Tartarus we first experienced, when falling in after Akzeriuth's collapse. We sprinted for our very lives running as fast as our mortal frames could carry us, with the very ground collapsing beneath our feet, breaking apart just inches behind us as we ran. Within minutes our efforts would give way to the crumbling land, and Qliphoth claiming our lives.

"Colonel, Tear!" cried a voice, through the dust-choked air obscuring our view even a foot in front, no matter where we might run.

The roaring of a fon-tech engine ripped through our ears like thunder, blowing away for a moment whatever dust and red vapor blocked our sight, just enough so we made out a form surging ahead, with something shooting through for Tear and I to grab. A rope Guy threw out from the Tartarus, from its rear bay hatch where smaller craft were kept for special operations. Just as he hoisted us in, heaving with all his might, the surface area of land that could of possibly held us broke away, crumbling into rocks and dust from a few larger boulders, lost in the hissing swirling sea of miasma far below.

I noted the remainder of the citizens Luke allowed Tear to save, huddled in circles, terrified along with Glenn McGovern concerning what happened. I saw Natalia comforting them in the bay's tight confines, healing any injured, along with Ion and Anise using gels. The sensation of shock still paralyzed everything from thinking rationally to inquire what became of poor Luke.

No one uttered another word until a few hours later when reaching solid land due further just east of Rotelo Bridge on the Western Rugnica plains, with the Sephiroth supporting this region still holding for now. The brigade of the Malkuthian army encamped here, repairing Rotelo Bridge, dared not enter St. Binah before for fear of another Akzeriuth. They recognized the Tartus instantly as the rescue vessel sent in by Peony to evacuate the people of St. Binah. We docked at the outskirts of the Malkuthian encampment, a makeshift site with barracks hastily construed like the Kaitzur checkpoint. The moment the rear bay doors swung open, the people swelled out embraced by their loved ones that awaited. When the crush of the crowd dispersed, escorting by military personal to the civilian barracks, a solitary figure stood alone in the spot where the people dispersed, with a pensive expression weighing his jolly spirits.

The last time I saw His Majesty like this was when his father died, now with the same mood clouding his somber face. Guy, Natalia, Tear, Ion, and Anise who gathered behind remained rather quiet as well.

"I take it, Jade, the operation of saving the people of St. Binah was a success," Peony begin, coming over, glancing into the empty yawning bay of the Tartarus.

"Yes, Your Majesty," I replied simply, sullen in spirits as well so sunken I couldn't mask it with one of my usual smiles.

"Something happened to Luke. Even in times like this, I know you well enough that you hide any sad feelings," Peony observed, eyeing my other comrades too.

Tear stood there composed, though the pain deep in her sapphire eyes, under the curtain of hair over her face betrayed her true feelings. Natalia had to bit her lip and blink hard to keep from bursting into tears, guessing full well what happened. Guy's downcast visage never once left his feet, though he contained his raging sorrow. Anise said nothing fixing her visage down as well. I appeared more expressionless than anything, a sign Peony knew well something happened to Luke.

I did my best to keep what remained of the group spirit together, when asking, "Your Majesty, do you know if we have any military craft capable of flying in our possession? I heard from Ion the Order once sponsored the development of a hover drive in Sheriden."

"If we could fly into the Qliphoth to what remains of St. Binah on the mantle before it sinks, there's a possibility—" Poor Natalia couldn't contain herself, having Luke as her dear friend and future fiancée since childhood, crying in Guy's supportive arms. "Luke, that Luke still lives!"

"I believe he's alive, just as you thought I was after Akzeriuth," I added to Peony, indirectly comforting Natalia. "Call it a word I don't like to use, everyone, but it's a form of faith—to believe, even if we can't be certain."

"Wow, Colonel, I never thought I'd hear _you, _of all people use that word," Anise chuckled, swallowing down any sadness she held, skipping up behind me.

"It's merely a possibility, as Hod remained afloat for some time, Anise," I countered, smiling down at her. "Don't think I've become religious, by any means."

"The Colonel being religious, that's something I'd give anything to see," Guy laughed, drawing a smile from Natalia he released.

Peony nearly doubled in laughter knowing how much of a skeptic I am in those matters, the last person alive to be a devout follower, even if hell froze over. "So Jade," he added, breaking into a smile himself, "We do have a flying craft on the grounds, but I'm afraid its not ours. One of the god-generals acting independently of the Grand Maestro's orders landed in it, about to assist with the evacuation of Engeve to the north. He said in his research he discovered the Sephiroth at Shurrey Hill, responsible for supporting St. Binah, extends further north where Engeve is, encompassing the entire Rugnica plains."

We heard a scuffling behind one of the nearby barracks, a sign someone overheard, heading out into the open where we stood. Believe it or not, it was rather nice to see an old friend return, calm for just one moment before he spotted us bursting out, "Oh god, you guys again," shaking his head, sighing. "Just when I've been doing everything to stop the war from breaking out, you guys show up. Let me guess, that stupid replica screwed up, eh? Which means house Fabre has pretty stupid genes."

"How can you insult him?" Anise frowned at Asch, stepping forward. "Just when I thought you were nice, I wanted to marry you instead of Luke."

"Sh…shut up, you brat," the god-general hissed, striding out, with his emerald eyes narrowing, and flaming out twisting in the wind. "All that replica has done is cause me trouble, after stealing my home, family, everything that was mine. Yet if he dies…"

Asche's voice trailed off, with a rare hint of sadness, like a sunbeam piercing the clouds on an overcast day, creeping through in his voice, in the downward turn of lips and feeling twinkling in his eyes. "It'd be as if I…died, too."

"I see this Luke is equally passionate in feeling his feelings as well," I added, with a smile rising on my lips.

"Shut up!" he hissed, growing even angrier. "Unlike my stupid replica, I won't fall for your tricks."

"And is prone to outbursts as well," I finished, grinning. "Besides, he must feel quite lonely at the loss of a friend in the other Luke, too."

"SH…SHUT UP!!" he roared, nearly drawing his sword and lunging at me. "Who the hell says I'm his friend!?"

"I thought you just said you wouldn't fall for my tricks," I chuckled, pushing my glasses back up the bridge of my nose. "But in all seriousness," I continued, eying some winged vehicle beyond the barracks Ash used to fly here. "I would like to borrow that flying craft you arrived in, Asch. There's no telling when what remains of St. Binah Luke is on in the Qliphoth will sink. Perhaps you could use the Albiore to evacuate Engeve to the north, but we'll have to lower the Rugnica plains at the same time."

"If the Rugnica plains aren't lowered at the Sherrey Hill sephiroth, the advancing Kimlascan army entering that area will be wiped as well when the entire eastern half of the Rugnican continent goes plunging into the Qliphoth," added Peony, sighing. "Though the Kimlascans are our enemy, marching upon orders from King Ingolbert, convinced by Mohs, it'd be a shame to see their entire army, perhaps 30,000 soldiers plunge to their deaths before bidding their loved ones goodbye."

"My god! That many more people will die," gasped Natalia, horrified. She turned away back towards the Tartarus, burying her face in her hands. "First Luke, now our nation's people. I can't stand this."

"I know you feel, Natalia," said Tear, sympathetically, placing a hand on the princess's shoulder, understanding her pain from loosing Luke at St. Binah. "That in times like this, its easy to given up, when I saw Luke sacrifice himself at St. Binah, but if we my allow my brother's madness to continue, every single continent on the Outer Lands will fall into the Qliphoth, and all life would perish. Sometimes, reason must guide you over feelings in times like this, no matter how great the pain."

"Tear, thank you," Natalia sniffled, soothed by the healer's wisdom. "I'll do my best, not only for the people of Kimlasca, but Malkuth, all of you and…Luke." The mention of his name drowned her deep in sorrow.

"Perhaps I should be the one assuming full responsibility for the cause of Luke's actions," I began, turning back to face everyone in front of the Tartarus, including Peony, Asch, Anise, Guy, Natalia and Tear. My serious tone drew to full attention focused on every word I uttered. "It was not only the guilt he felt over Akzeriuth, or his feelings of inferiority as a replica, but what he wanted from me…I couldn't give him."

"Anise and I know Luke developed feelings for you since Aramis Spring," Guy sighed, crossing his arms wistfully. "We know you're the type of person, Colonel, who doesn't like to get involved in things you find unnecessary like…relationships…"

"But that dreck was so stupid, he didn't know when to give up," Asch chimed in, shaking his head. Behind his insolent tone lurked sorrow evident in his expression. "I'm not surprised he did something like this. Let me guess, he thought that by risking his life, you'd finally tell him at last how you felt, Jade," he finally addressed me personally. "I know my replica would do something like that, cause he's…me."

"I know you don't like him Lu…I mean Asch, cause you feel he's taken everything from you, but as his original, you feel some responsibly, right?" Natalia inquired, the closest to Asch out of all of us, who could possibly get on his good side.

"Care, huh? For a failure like that? Ha!" Asch scoffed, throwing back his head, almost laughing. "Borrow my Albiore if you want to save him, but I'm taking the Tartarus to evacuate the citizens of Engeve. If only my replica killed Van when he had the chance, dammit, none of this would be happening!"

"Hmm, so indirectly by cooperating, you're showing that you in fact care for Luke," I added, grinning at Asch subtly.

"What the hell? I'm only cleaning up after him cause Van ended up living," Ash spat, storming past up to the Tartarus's bay hatch.

"Wait, you'll need a healer to help you, in case anyone's injured," Natalia stopped him dead in his tracks right behind. "And someone to operate the Tartarus."

"You can use hyper-resonance like your replica, right?" Tear inquired, approaching also. "Because after evacuating Engeve, we'll have to operate the passage ring at Shurrey Hill, needing one who uses hyper-resonance like you to erase the code Van used to control them. As a descendant of Yulia, all I can do is activate the ring, but your or Luke has to control it."

"I want to go with Jade to save Master!" cried Mieu, bounding over to where I stood. "I love Master so much, I want to help save him, and I'd be sad if he died."

"Colonel, I'm going with you too," Guy announced, striding to my side. "Besides, I promised Luke I'd always be there for him. Natalia, I swear I won't come back until I find him."

Natalia threw herself in Guy's arms, blinking hard to fight back her tears. "Thank you, I promise I won't give up too."

"Ion, you have to stay here and rest," Anise demanded, looming over him.

The Fon Master sighed, shaking his head. "No, Anise, I must go with Tear, Asch, and Natalia." He swallowed his pain, strengthening his resolve, burning in the fire of his eyes even if he was frail. "After all, I'm the only one who can undo the Daathic seals blocking the sephiroth, and it's my duty as a Fon Master to stop this war, so no more innocent people die. Sadly, its only when life is lost do people realize its preciousness."

"Like my stupid replica," Asch added bitterly, raising a fist. He turned away, gazing out with sorrow. "Luke, why can't you have more confidence, stop insulting me by thinking your less? Fight me and prove to me whose really 'Luke.' Then maybe I'll respect you, no, you'll respect…yourself."

"Even you're hurt by his loss," sighed Guy, crossing his arms, leaning against the side of the Tartarus by its rear view hatch wide open. "Before I left for Aramis Spring back when you joined our party after Akzeriuth, Asch, I told Natalia I had a responsibly to look after you and Luke. So by saving Luke, I'll try to help both of you in doing the best I can." Guy held out his hand in a gesture of renewed friendship to the god-general.

"Hmph." Asch turned his nose up in the air, disappearing completely into the Tartarus's hatch bay. "Do whatever you like," he muttered under his breath, his long crimson hair flowing out as he glided up and away inside.

"How cute, acting like a bad boy when he really cares," laughed Anise, joining her palms, "The guys that play hardest are the best ones to get. Hehe, come Ion, don't stand around all day," she demanded, dragging him in.

I bade His Majesty goodbye, apologizing for any unnessary trouble Luke's rash actions caused, taking Mieu and Guy with me to pilot the Albiore, in hopes of finding Luke alive on the crust of St. Binah he fell with into the Qliphoth. He thought he could just throw away his life to atone for Akzeriuth, forcing me to confess the love I hid inside, knowing if he were to die, I'd have no choice but to tell him in his final moments of life. I can't believe he was a fool going this far to seek what it was I truly felt in my heart. No other person alive, even Dist, has been foolish enough to do this. Is this what's called true love, when that's all that matters to a person, they're willing to throw away their very life?

"Luke, if you die, I won't forgive you," I hissed under my breath in the Albiore, taking the passenger's seat next to Guy, seating himself at its controls. "Tear said that she'd never forgive him if he died too, that the one he'd be hurting most is…me. I never thought I'd feel my emotions again, that I even had a heart…"

"Everyone does, no matter how much they hide it," Guy assured, staring the Albiore's engines. "I thought after loosing the parts of my memory when Duke Fabre killed my family, the rage would go away, but it surfaced when Sync's curse slot hit me, I realized just how far deep that hate went buried deep inside."

"Indeed, in the end, I'm human as well," I admitted, raising a hand to my forehead out of shame. "And you'd better not go telling anyone what I shared. You just happened to be here, Guy. Because sharing with others complicates things more," I added somewhat out of spite.

"I think its good, Colonel, you finally opened up to everyone about your relationship with Luke," Guy replied, bringing the Albiore's nose up with a jerk, lurching a bit before she finally ascended fully a good 10 feet off the ground in the air.

Peony smiled, waving from the ground, his baggy pants billowing out and hair blown out twisting wildly in the wind from the Albiore's take off. I saw deep in his sapphire eyes even from this distance a sense of hope, telling me to believe. General Frings came out of one of the barracks, joining His Majesty in seeing me off.

"They knew about Luke and you, as do we. Everyone is a lot more accepting of the relationship you two have, than you imagine." Guy eyed me, directly our ship's course due east where St. Binah just plunged into the Qliphoh.

"My, my, to think your feelings hold more ground than my reason," I remarked, smiling softly, casting a sidelong glance that made him think. "I'm curious to know just how long one with the seventh fonon, especially a replica, can survive in the Qliphoth's hostile environment. That _is_ why we're going after Luke, Guy."

Guy shook his head. "You just can't be direct, can you?" he sighed, relishing the Albiore's smooth controls, running his hand like a lover over her steering wheel, with an expression of bliss crossing his tired face, content in operating his new vehicle he piloted with ease, like a ship gliding gracefully over the waves of the sea she commands

"I'm more concerned about your unhealthy obsession with fon-tech, which reminds me of Dist in a rather unpleasant way," I countered, teasing him with a smirk.

My comment left him speechless as his hands lifted off the steering wheel a moment, with the ship swerving, before steering it back on track. "Are you comparing me to…Dist?" he gasped, stung with the insult.

"Oh, it was Luke that compared you to him before, not me," I answered, shrugging, feigning my innocence quite skillfully.

"Nice try, Colonel, but I know it was you who tricked him into comparing Dist with me."

"Can we change the subject? It's making me rather…sick. Dear me, how my frail body is acting up. Look what you did, Guy, by mentioning such a subject," I chided, crouching over against the resistance of my seatbelt as if I were in pain. "I think I need to be taken to a senior center, perhaps a hospice to live out the rest of my days. I've lived a troubled life, you know. The military psychiatrists say its post-traumatic stress disorder from battles, which causes a lack of sleep, leading me to fear people in my waking state, unsure if what I'm perceiving is reality or delusion. You are real, are you not, Guy?"

"Jade, Jade, are you okay?" piped Mieu, bouncing over in between our seats from the back where he watched.

"Unfortunately, I need both hands to steer. If I didn't, I'd let you know if I was 'real,'" Guy chuckled, his mirth dying in a sigh. "It's gonna be a long ride, to be with…_you _of all people."

I smiled, sinking back into the Albiore's soft seat, closing my eyes, holding Mieu on my lap. "Wake me up when we've entered the Qliphoth where St. Binah fell if I'm sleeping," I murmured, drifting off.

* * *

**Guy's POV**

Even in times like this the Colonel amazes me, wearing a smile and joking when the most tragic thing has happened. Just when you're getting close enough to someone you love them from the bottom of your heart, but it's at a moment when their life hangs in the balance between life and death is truly sad. That's how far Jade buried his feelings, leaving Luke no other alternative in his eyes, but to die so Jade would admit just how much he truly loved Luke to his face. Each is stubborn in his way, Luke with not realizing how others feel, even if they don't show it, with Jade more out of ignorance. They're so opposite, like night and day, fire and ice, standing on opposite sides of a chasm, I should have seen such a romance was doomed from the very beginning. I know no two other people alive so different, yet in love if night and day become one, and fire and ice melting in one heart.

That heart was the love between souls that bound them, surviving physical death at the time our consciousness returns to the planet's memory, perhaps there in some realm within its core where Lorelei dwells, we find a sense of rest and unity with those we loved on earth. At least I'd like to think so considering how my sister Mary, my mother, my servants, even my pets, all those I held dear in Hod were killed before my very eyes. To avoid such grief eating away at my soul, taking revenge like my knight Vandelesca, or he who once was, now Van, I've had to tell myself to matter how great the pain, the joy in life outweighs it when that final moment comes, that we can be happy despite being human.

I suppose it's why I'm here to give Jade faith, something he really needs to see life beyond the limits of what he knows. I know he's suffered for the sins of fomicry, just as Luke has for being a replica, that the pain we feel is different, yet the hurt underlying it is the same, drawing us together. Tear feels that in fighting her own brother, Natalia in seeing her nation go to war, Anise in watching poor Ion's health fail, Mieu too in coming here. I mustn't forget Asch who wants Luke to find his sense of self, perhaps Peony too who waved goodbye, telling Jade to believe, having faith as he smiled seeing us off before.

Within a few hours time I expected to find the fertile prairie of the Rugnician plains, a verdant land stretching as far as the eye could see, an entire boundless sea of grass caressed by pleasant breezes, cut only by ribbons of road winding through as animals roamed free and farmers tended to their crops, an honest hardy people with connections to Engeve, who shipped their food throughout the whole world feeding thousands. A fresh red apple from Engeve, the best-grown fresh could fill your mouth with the sweetest natural sugars, the crunchiest bite you might savor. But no more can you taste such an apple, or watch wild animals roam because the continent they exist on, that once kissed the oceans around it, warmed by the sun above exists no more, having sank into the abysmal hell of the Qliphoth, where in its wake remained a colossal planetary scar, a gaping hole deeper and wider than any crater, cut in jagged edges where vast stretches of beach once hugged the sea.

No, I couldn't wake Jade up to know we reached the entrance to hell. He tried so hard to smile, even if he pretended it was just in sarcasm to make me feel better. He knows how much I love Luke, how much I miss him, how much his loss is tearing me inside, that I won't return to tell Natalia and the others what happened, because the very thought of Luke's death brought tears to the poor princess's eyes. I wouldn't return without him, cause I'm not telling my friends their loved one died. It's the most painful thing a person can do to confront those about one they lost like their own flesh and blood. I endured the indescribable heartache once seeing my sister and mother die before my eyes in Hod's attack, collapsing on me, staining me with their blood. I won't allow my friends to suffer, especially Jade in a place like this.

He can act tough, play cool all he wants but I won't play games cause he'll be the one hurt. I'll just find Luke wherever he is on what remains of St. Binah in the Qliphoth if it hasn't sunk, and when Jade awakens, Luke will be right there resting in his arms. Yes, that's how it should be, a most fitting reunion star-crossed lovers in grief. I told Luke he should listen to his heart, following his feelings for Jade, so this is why he ended up where he is. I feel deeply responsible since I've been a father to Luke, taking his hand gently whenever I can be a light to guide him in the dark. I'll find Luke just as I returned to wait for him at Aramis Spring after everyone abandoned him in Yulia City.

My heart sunk with the Albiore plunging into the planet's scar, where a complete opening was found, not large and easy to enter like the main entrance to the Qliphoth above Yulia City, but a punctured crust of land torn open like a gigantic knife fell from the sky ripping open the surface's very flesh, exposing its blood in the Qliphoth's liquefied mantle pulsing miles beneath in a viscous sea of crimson and violet lava, eddying and bubbling against whatever fell in before ingesting it completely. A sliver of twilight clung to the horizon in this godforsaken realm, obscured by acidic mists fizzling up from the lava in red clouds, looming about like some plague. If I flew too low the miasmic vapors would eat away at the Albiore's hull, eroding her engines causing us to crash and be swallowed whole in death. Violent bursts of miasma shot up a mile high at times like solar flares threatening to clog the plane's very engines.

Only the slight rumbling of Mieu's purr as he slept soundly on Jade's lap, rocked by the steady sigh of Jade's breath disrupted the engine's groan, in between the low hum of the by fon-tech generator powering the engine, almost rising to a buzz at times in back if turbulence hit outside. That technology acquired from Dawn Age machinery discovered in ancient ruins converted air fonons to clean usable energy through the splitting of fonons from their atoms, a form of nuclear fission beyond today's rudimentary knowledge. An energy gage written in ancient Ispanian above the dashboard of the Albiore read only three more hours of sufficient fuel remained, due to the loss of air fonons the miasma consumed in its lava, sucking what little lifeblood remained to power the Albiore in flight.

A high, shrill beep jarred my mind, having sunken into a slumber from the monotony of the engine and generator droning, with seconds drawn to minutes, fading to hours, even years until all time faded, as I slipped into daydreaming until that rude beep jerked me wide awake, with my body falling on the Albiore's wheel digging deep into my chest, as my eyes darted down to the hellish sea below, hope racing in a heartbeat that somewhere in this churning magma Luke lived if it hadn't swallowed him down into the planet's core, where his seventh fonons would dissipate and he'd cease to exist having merged back into Lorelei, a form of death in and of itself.

The Albore's mechanized voice followed by the beep pointed to a dot flashing on its monitor, racing like my heart itself having become a part of the craft, diving down on the little island of land barely floating, choked by the miasmic lava lapping on its shores like red vicious fingers, I imagined dragging Luke to his death at St. Binah. The very thought made my bright blue eyes brim with tears. The awful reality of my thoughts made my feelings want to surge out in a tidal, wave soaking someone's chest in a flood of hot tears, sprining from the helplessness I felt about Luke's impending fate. In life or death tears make no difference, just as he lamented those killed at Akzeriuth. I had to be strong for Luke wherever he existed, either in the flesh or from the other side, so he wouldn't think I was a pathetic fool who let him down in the end.

* * *

**Jade's POV**

We found himself unconscious in the rubble of St. Binah, amazed his body held together in one piece, in spite of a house he stood by near the town square that collapsed in him in a mess of roof beams and shingles. In a flood of emotion so unlike my cold self, hot tears streamed down my face leaving wet trails in their tracks.

"Oh, excuse me," I remarked, following Guy as he carried Luke back to the Abliore. "It seems the dry air here has made my eyes rather watery."

"It's okay even for a soldier to cry," Guy sighed, pausing as he hoisted Luke up higher over his shoulder.

"Cry?" I repeated incredulously, shrugging as I opened the Albiore's closed hatch. "If I was really crying, I'd be wracked with more tears than you could ever imagine, flooding the very seas with the salt of my grief greater than its own, in all honesty, dear." I bowed making a theatrical gesture as Guy lifted Luke in.

"God! I can't believe you, Jade," he sighed, shaking his head as I slipped in after. "I swear I don't know what to think of you at times cause you love Luke deeply, yet…"

I seized Luke in my arms as soon as Guy laid him down on one of the passenger's seats in the back of the Abliore, burying my face in his chest, with my glasses tossed on the empty seat beside, relishing the feel of his beating heart on my cheek, the caresses of his flaming locks on my forehead brushing away all fears.

"You fool, in all your innocence you've been just like Professor Nebilim, forcing me to face my feelings I deny the most, reliving her death again in what I thought was yours, seeing the past come alive in the present," I hissed under my breath, pushing up against him, collapsed on my knees on the floor of the plane. "I've told you to take responsibility for the sins of your past, and did you think, Luke, you atoned for it by attempting to give up your very life?"

"Colonel, Luke's had such a hard time trying to find who he is, please forgive him," Guy implored, laying a firm hand on my shoulder. "You're a kind man of all people to put up with him the way you have, though I know it goes against the persona you show to the world. But I must say, I'm surprised to see you show that sort of kindness, Jade."

"Oh, please, me kind?" I laughed, feigning an icy smile, as I glanced back at him over my shoulder in the pilot's seat he took. "But I think the fact Luke's unconscious is a perfect opportunity to test some new medicines I was just preparing, to induce paralysis, temporary unconsciousness or brief cardiac arrest." I grinned pretending to dig for a syringe in my uniform pockets. "Of course since he's still unconscious I wouldn't know if that part would work. Is it worth testing, Guy?" I questioned, reaching for my glasses on the seat next to me, slipping them back on, eyeing Guy through them in front coolly.

"Hmm, I'm sure Luke in his unconscious state saw a white light at the end of a tunnel, perhaps Lorelei, who like the departed loved ones a person encounters in their near death experiences tells them to return back to their body, that their time hasn't come…" I started to explain, the expression on Guy's face priceless as his bright blue eyes widened and mouth gaped wide open. "I'm sure Luke will write about his near death experience in a book and sell it. After all, he has a quite a flare for the dramatic, but alas I fear for his basic mastery over complex grammar such as verbs and nouns bemuses him, but I'm sure Guy, with your help he'll write a most splendid best seller."

"…Sure to be a classic in the history of our proud Ispanian literature," I added, grinning as Guy's mouth fell open further in shock. "Or perhaps you can help him write passionate love poems confessing his very feelings as I read his heartfelt words."

I crossed one leg over the other, crossing my arms over the seatbelt fastened across my chest, letting my chin sink down as a slight smile crossed my face, and mischief played in my eyes. "Ah, images of the ardor Luke holds for me floods my very mind, I'm at such a loss of words…"

"Pretending not to be serious, even now eh?" Guy sighed again, more heavily, maneuvering the plane up off St. Binah's teetering mass read to sink into the Qliphoth at any given moment.

A smile crossed Guy's pink lips and a twinkling lit his eyes. "But I think Tear was right when she said you had that attitude to hide your feelings towards Dist, if you two were really friends at one point, after the first battle we had with him aboard the Tartarus. But unlike with him, with Luke it's really sincere. You wouldn't of thought of getting the Albiore to save him if you didn't mean it, knowing the risks we'd take in coming, that our fuel only lasted a few hours. Because you well…"

"Perhaps…love him, but people say things they don't really mean when pressed in certain situations, even myself when I told him how I felt, when I thought he was about to die before when St. Binah was falling and…" At last my true feelings made themselves known in a pain choked voice I could no longer hide, no matter how hard I tried. "Please, don't discuss this with anyone when we return. Do you understand? If anything, you'll tell them I saved Luke because I feared the loss of a…valuable fighter." I slipped my glasses off, holding them in one hand, hiding my face in shame with the other.

"Don't worry, Jade, I won't," Guy promised, a kind smile gracing his face, as a gentle hand reached over the space between us to clasp my hand over my fon-tech glasses. "I have gotten to know you more than I expected, so it makes sense you'd hide your real feelings when you really care so deeply, it almost…hurts."

"Aren't we humans silly creatures?" I mused, returning him a smile. "We pretend things don't bother us, but really…never mind…" I trailed off, closing my eyes.

* * *

**Luke's POV**

I came back to conscious, finding the world form around me again when Jade and Guy discussed the idea of writing my "near death experience" into a best seller ironically, but what really touched me deeply was when Guy said, people hid their real feelings often acting the opposite of how they felt, and that was when Jade admitted to him indirectly he loved me.

The truth is that searching for my sense of self and falling in love both at once has been an overwhelming experience, with only seven years of life behind me, and my foolishness jeopardizing our whole mission of stopping Van by lowering the Outer Lands to prevent any more tragedies like Hod. I believed so deeply that the only way my guilt could be atoned for, much like the god-generals clinging to Van's ideals, willing to die for them, that if I sacrificed myself I could prove I the regret I truly felt from the bottom of my heart.

This started when I told Tear "that if I could really give my life to make up for Akzeriuth, then I would, but I'd be afraid," never conceiving I'd follow my own foolish words to what should have been my grave. At the same time, my fear of what Jade thought drove me beyond the restraints of my reason I barely had, thrown into a dream where all that mattered was how he felt, determining my fate. My lack of self esteem, combined with my growing dependence on him, and confusion of the sensations my body felt in the throes of passion with him, overwhelmed me to a point where things no longer made sense, that my very being fell apart as did St. Binah plunging into the Qliphoth, yet I survived to realize what a fool I really was.

I pretended to close my eyes, remain unconscious as we journeyed back up into the Outer Lands through the gap St. Binah left in the crust, when a lingering conscious crept back through the recesses of my mind, _O aspect of my soul, Light of the Sacred Flame, did you really think you could die, when we the seventh fonon, the element of time and space, as well as healing, even the planet's memory, are in some ways immortal?_

_So you were the one that kept me alive when I fell_, I mused back, sinking within my very self. _Why did you save me, Lorelei, when you know I should of died?_

_Because through you, I grow with you, coming to realize the feelings you share with that human individual is something I never imagined capable of experiencing_, the collective consciousness of the Seventh Fonon echoed through my psyche.

"What are you talking about?" I murmured aloud, trying to regain control of my body slipping fully back in, somehow still dislocated as Lorelei awakened in me, with the two of us conscious inside.

"Luke?" Jade questioned, slipping back behind where I was. "Guy, keep flying, I'll handle this. I sense some other conscious like Luke's of the same frequency as the seventh fonon is active in his conscious." With his fonic sight he detected a mass of seventh fonons swirling about me in a blazing white aura, surprise over his countenance drawing him even closer.

"Luke used to have a strange voice that talked to him giving him headaches back at the manor when he thought he'd had amnesia, which certainly wasn't Asch back then," Guy explained, glancing nervously behind, still piloting the Albiore up out of the Qliphoth to the Outer Land where the sun shined bright, washing through the plane's narrow interior.

"Then this must be that conscious from back then," Jade observed, taking the empty passenger seat beside me in the back, crooned over me his face only a few feet away, I heard the rhythm of his breath, and very gaze falling over. "Who are you? What have you done with Luke?" he asked calmly, with his steady gaze trained on every move my body under Lorelei's control made as I stirred moving my mouth to speak, only it wasn't me.

"Indeed, I am the one who tried to speak with Luke, my perfect isofon whose fonon frequency is the same as mine," Lorelei's conscious resounded out using my physical voice, vibrating in a mystic tone transcending my normal speech. "My existence was first discovered at the far ends of the earth at Keterberg by Dr. Cross over two millennia ago, when Memory Particles, the energy that floats in the planet's core, is blown out through the Radiation Gate, floating through the fon felt combining with the first through six fonons giving birth to my conscious, the Seventh Fonon, when I entered the Absorption Gate in a stream of light, just north of where you live, Jade, is when Dr. Cross discovered I existed."

"So you're Lorelei, the Seventh Fonon itself!? Though I thought your existence was only hypothetical," Jade concurred.

"I can't believe this," Guy gasped. "Lorelei exists!"

"You remind me much of Dr. Cross, Jade, and Guy of his ancestor Valta Sigmund, who protected Yulia faithfully as the first generation of House Gardios," Lorelei continued, almost trying to smile through my body tugging at my lips. "Both were her seven sages. Yulia herself was the first human I spoke to, who beseeched me to help mankind achieve happiness by advancing civilization. That's when Dr. Cross approached her with the idea of harnessing my power through the Planet Storm, (the name of the cycle given when Memory Particles circulate from the planet's core, through the fon belt and back through the Absorption and Radiation Gates) so humanity might use it as an eternal energy source for their benefit, entering a Golden Age where everyone could realize their dreams."

"But human history is full of turbulence as our nature is imperfect," added Jade sadly; pushing his glasses back up his nose. "Which led to abuses in power and the collapse of that Golden time we call the Dawn Age."

"I knew not of the flaws of your species' nature back then," echoed Lorelei back, holding Jade's hand through mine, with my eyes still closed as I listened with all my heart. "In an effort to guide humanity towards happiness, I shared with Yulia my Memory that holds all knowledge of the planet's past, present and future. It is true a Score of destruction awaits this world, however it's caused by the continual wars waged by your kind, the rulers that sit on your thrones, not by my own will. In fact, I have no true individualized ego conscious as you humans see it. My words, the Score itself tells what happens in the future caused by the destructive behavior your species takes in the present. But Luke here exists outside of the Score, above the destruction your world will face, a ray of light where hope once ceased to exist."

"The 'True Light of the Sacred Flame' born from Asche," Guy murmured, landing the Albiore a few miles north of the Malkuthian encampment right by Rotelo Bridge, where everyone awaited meeting me after my rescue.

"Indeed, that is why he must live, why I healed his body when he died right after a building fell on him when you, Jade, and my descendant Tear fled for your lives as the land around St. Binah was collapsing in," Lorelei continued on, wrapping Jade and Guy as if in a trance.

Both Guy and Jade knelt beside me as the Albiore was on firm ground, glowing in an aura of heavenly light cast bye Lorelei when it spoke. "The truth is that after Luke died, his body disintegrated completely when his seventh fonons dissipated returning to the core. But there is one who seeks to destroy me, blaming me for humanity's future demise, trying to absorb my power, by increasing the core's vibrations and causing the Sephiroth to go out of control, which results in land masses falling and countless people dying. In order to stop that, so humanity might live on, I reconstructed Luke's body anew from seventh fonons as if he was born again, anchoring the conscious you call his soul back in, placing him in the same location he died in, so he'd be waiting when you saved him."

"My god, Luke really died!" Guy wailed, throwing his arms around me, with Mieu whimpering at my feet though he didn't really understand, crying, "Master's back!"

"In other words, you preformed an act humans might liken to God, when doing it of your own free will it shows you really care, having acquired some understanding a human conscious," Jade observed, raising a hand to my shoulder, while Guy and Mieu cried. "You just said, Lorelei, that you once had no human concept of free will, though you resurrected Luke just before. Why?"

"Because…through Luke I've grown, sharing in his sorrows as well as joys, the love he feels for you," Lorelei whispered through, stroking Guy and Mieu in my body to comfort them, then turning me aside to kiss Jade on the lips.

Jade gasped that such a detached consciousness with no real understanding of human emotion shared in my feelings, driven by the love I felt for him, perhaps brining me back to life for Jade's sake alone.

"That I've grown to love you as he does, Jade," Lorelei confessed, speaking as if it were me, and wishing I could fully return to my body, to embrace him with my own mortal arms bound in living flesh. "I am the Seventh Fonon, as I am Luke, and he is me, that is why I tell you this, that when Luke says he's just an empty replica, tell him he is loved by you as Fon Master Ion says, therefore human, but with my conscious as his soul. And now, I slumber within him again, lest he now he awakens, dear Jade."

As Lorelei's conscious fully faded out, its radiant aura of seventh fonons vanished as I returned, my own green eyes flickering open a brief moment, and I uttered, "Jade…" with all my strength, before passing out from the sheer strain placed on my body when Lorelei fully possessed me.

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

Thank you for everyone who reviewed and left me suggestions. I tried to simply my writing style and improve my grammar so its a bit more readable from here on out. I love to hear from people regarding plot ideas, as I run out of my own, so let me know if anything comes to mind while reading. EnjoyXD

* * *

**Chapter 12**

**Jade's POV**

Luke lay curled up in my arms. His streaming orange hair spilled over my elbow that pillowed his neck like flames, matted in clumps, dirtied a muddy shade darker. A smooth sweaty sheen coated his face, regret visible in the furrowing of his brows, corners of his lips turned down, parting slightly as his breath escaped and throat constricted, then moved to form some words lost in sleep. His chin tucked in nodded idly on his chest, falling gently aside against the bicep of my arm, which tensed under his touch. Sinking further in, his cheek pressed up to my arm, as the swell of muscle on the upper portion of it grew tighter, more taut under my skin. Feeling my entire body reflex in response to the warmth of his cheek on me, I wanted to melt into him, letting him know how I felt in the recesses of my heart.

My heart came alive in my gaze burning through, running across over his fine pink lips, dark brows and cheekbones more defined, growing handsome in the bloom of his youth. The roundness once hiding that definition, ebbed away in our journey, revealing a young man that not only matured physically, but spiritually as well. Plunged into the depths of pain, an inner wellspring of turmoil, Luke questioned his very existence, the meaning of his birth. Through that, he braved much self doubt, to which Lorelei gave the answer, _I am Luke and he is me, so when he says he's naught but an empty replica, tell him he's loved beyond all measure, by those around him, by you towards him you hold most dear. _

"As a replica, you are human, yet you are Lorelei," I whispered softly, addressing him when Guy restarted the Albiore, flying us down to the Malkuthian base, now that we were certain Luke's condition stabilized.

Guy and I decided out of prudence, to say not a word to the others, until we were certain the Rungican plain had been lowered safely from the Sephirth's passage ring at Shurrey Hill, that no war would start, and the citizens of Engeve were safe. Upon our arrival, the base bustled with much activity, reports delivered hourly to Emperor Peony by camp de aides who normally assisted the generals in organizing the Malkuthian army, if it were not for their absence. It was General Nordheim's duty to contain the southward marching Kimlascan army, encroaching on Engeve, while Frings coordinated the evacuation of that town. Asch had heard of Frings' operation, landing here in the Albiore to help, thus accompanied by our friends, who lowered this continent at the same time.

There was no telling when the entire land mass would fall, if Engeve could be evacuated before then, so our friends who joined up with Asch, split up into two groups, with Asch, Tear, Ion and Anise visiting Shurrey Hill, and Natalia going with Frings, on behalf of peace. She did everything she could to counter Moh's act, of pitting King Ingolbert into attacking Malkuth. Shortly after the evacuation of St. Binah, King Ingolbert urged an open declaration of war, using the presence of the base by Rotelo Bridge as evidence that Malkuth was surely planning an attack, when in reality the base was constructed to help in evacuations.

No one predicated in the midst of all this chaos, Luke would do something so reckless as to act on his own in the evacuation of St. Binah, the moment Tear wanted to use her fonic hymns to save the people. Out of nowhere, like a lunar eclipse in midday, a portent in ancient times believed to be an omen, Dist showed up launching one of his contraptions, in his attempt to abduct Ion. I can only guess, from observing the internal stress built within, the political tensions between Malkuth and Kimlasca, and the god-generals chasing after something in Luke snapped, causing all the guilt he buried inside over Akzeriuth to burst free.

Luke thought he really changed, when he reality he stuffed his pain so far down inside, he forget it even existed. He grew mentally, intellectually in leaps, understanding concepts like responsibility for one's actions, but deep down his tender heart still ached, the pain agonizingly deep, as we often forget when we suffer that separation between what's in our minds, and what truly ails us in heart. I observed how that separation occurred in different individuals in varying degrees, studying the human condition. The most extreme case I saw in Van, who still loved his sister, yet was possessed by a megalomania that blinded him, verging on madness in his twisted vision of freeing humanity from the Score.

Guy suffered that disconnection to a lesser degree, possibly treading down Van's path at the loss of his family and Hod. That came to light only because of Sync's curse slot, forcing Guy to face his inner pain. Luke was somewhere between the two of them, teetering dangerously close to Van's state, overwhelmed by the guilt and sorrow of Akzeriuth. Given that Luke opened up so intimately to me, and that Lorelei brought him back to life, I had to make sure Luke never wandered down that path, in believing it was necessary to sacrifice himself to save the lives of others. I would realize just how difficult it was later before the Tower of Rem, when he said, _maybe getting rid of the miasma is what I was born to do. I'm scared, I don't want to die, but I don't know what else to do, just when I've started to live. Yes, I'm scared, but if I can save others, I'll die. Is this the fear the people at Akzeriuth felt in their last moments of life?_

The fear of seeing your life flash before your eyes is a terrifying one. One that can push you back from the brink of death with newfound wisdom, or a reason that spurs you into committing the same foolish action again, in which a second chance might never be given. I'm usually not thankful for the lot dealt to me in life, but this time I am, because Luke is back, he's here, alive breathing in my arms still resting, from the time an hour ago Lorelei possessed him. Of course, others needn't know how I feel, the reason behind my smile. Or at least it used to be. Perhaps a greater hint of genuine warmth has come through those days, since growing closer to Luke, though I still consider myself a cold person outwardly.

"Good day, Colenel Curtiss," an officer greeted me formally lowering his head as I passed, at the base we just landed at.

I returned the bow, saluting a brother officer of the same rank or higher, as is customary in military exchanges. In a barrack, one of the private quarters of officers, where enlisted men of lower rank were barred from entering, I carried Luke laying him on a bed. His hair, vermilion in its roots, lightened to orange its primary shade; finally yellow in its tips I noticed becoming more prominent as his hair grew out. His chin rolled over to one side against the pillow supporting it underneath, as his body extended out over most of the bed's length, twisted slightly positioned on his back. He unconsciously raised an arm, bent up around his head, beneath his hair fanning out.

"Jade…" he murmured, his body now stock still, save his lips trembling in sleep. "I hope you can forgive me. I never intended to hurt you…like this," his lingering voice died out, under the hum of lights inside the barracks, sometimes by the shouts of men and land ships roaring outside.

"You child," I sighed, shaking my head, slumping down on a chair I pulled up to his bed. "You hurt yourself because you thought your life had no value, that you were only an empty replica." Crooning over, my warm breath hit his cheek. "I can say though, when I thought I'd loose you, Luke, I realized just how much you…meant."

"Jade," Luke repeated my name, now longer a whisper caught in his throat, voiced at last when his eyes fluttered open. Clouded with sorrow in their depths, hope sparkled through at the same time knowing I was by his side, dancing in his eyes. The emotional hue that filled them was a vivid, clear green that spoke for his very heart. They brimmed with tears becoming deep, emerald pools that threatened to spill in wet tracks down his cheeks.

"You came for…me," he cried, spring up in bed and throwing himself in my chest, sobbing. "Even though you told me my life was worth living, that just because I'm a replica, it doesn't make me less than others. I really didn't change, cause I was stupid, I didn't listen! Why the hell did you come for me?" He looked up, searching me frantically with a desperate ring in his voice.

"You know have a habit of asking questions I don't like, Luke," I chided, raising a finger to his lips, silencing him, then leaning in to claim his mouth in mine. "So…stop," I hissed, taking his lower lip in mine. "Or I really will punish you."

"How many times have you…" he sniffled, trying to break away, only to find I seized him below me on the bed.

"Enough," I commanded, in low deep, almost growling tones, never quite letting my composure give way. "You forced me to relive Professor Nebilim's death, or would have, had I lost you. I couldn't continue…living if that happened." I sighed, closing my eyes, resting on my side beside him, with one arm below my head, and the other my face in shame. "I'd have to experience not just her death again, but yours too, Luke, and how could I be expected to live? I'm human too, you _know_." A slight hint of anger rose in that last word drawing Luke's attention.

He held his breath, shifting over. His lips drew down a moment, brows furrowed in frustration before he spoke. "But you hide it so damn well, you never looked like you were hurt, always smiling, making jabs at others, especially me! In fact, you even acted like I was a burden back at Aramis Spring. Do you think I can forget how you treated me before Akzeriuth?" Luke's voice trembled with rage, and he glared right at me, his face only inches from mine.

I lowered my hand from my face, hoisted myself up, returning his gaze so calmly I disarmed him, sending chills up his very spine. My cadence was soft and steady, though laced with an undercurrent of feeling. "Do you think whining, blaming others for how you were back then is any excuse for your behavior now, Luke?" I queried, gazing intently, never letting my visage once leave his frozen face. "All of us know, especially Tear and I, know change takes time."

"Damn your reasoning, you're worse than her, no, awful," Luke spat, flaring up again.

"Well then, perhaps you're the same brat I first met, in how thankless you act, when Guy and I risked our very lives to save you in the Qliphoth," I added off handed, sitting up and turning away off the edge of the bed, a cold aura falling over.

"No, that's not what I meant, Jade," he cried back in defiance, throwing his arms around me from behind, his chin sinking into my shoulder, as he pressed his cheek to mine. "I know I made not only Tear, but Natalia, Anise, Guy, even Mieu, everyone cry. When Tear asked me before I fell in the Qliphoth, 'is this how you treat those you love,' I realize now it's the cruelest thing I've done to those closest to me, that I was wrong. I hurt you, just like you thought you hurt Professor Nebilim…" He paused, tone deepening in sorrow. "And I don't expect your forgiveness, ever, so let's just call off this whole thing and forget I fell in love."

"Excuse me?" I questioned, turning in his grasp, pushing him an arm's length back so he could see me eying him sternly. "That's even more childish of you than before, after everything you've done."

"Wh…what?" he growled, taken aback. "I don't get you, you actually want to be with me, this…rep— " He wanted to say _replica_.

"Don't forget Asch, the trouble you caused him, as well as Ion and Peony," I added, leaning in so directly, he stopped straight against the wall. "The Fon Master said 'you are loved, therefore human,' but do you not remember what Lorelei said too?"

Luke remained rooted to his spot as if glued to the wall, his brows furrowed in questioning. "…Lorelei?" an empty tone rang in his voice and blankness overcame his expression.

"It seems you've forgotten. What a troublesome boy you are." I smiled teasingly, stroking his face.

Life flowed back into him from my touch, his frame bent over, melting in my arms, with a soft smile crossing his face. It was barely visible in the corners of his lips stretched up, eyes closing halfway in fatigue from his emotions wearing him out.

"Don't worry, right now, the most important thing is rest. After such traumatic events as a battle, its common the mind is disoriented, until times passes and the individual regains composure," I explained. "During that time in the army, that person remains under watch until a doctor can assess them, that they're truly okay."

I called Guy in, who came with a blood fonon meter I attached to Luke's arm. A grave expression fell like a shadow across his face, darkening his sky blue eyes, to the stormy gray of clouds before it rains. He watched fixated on every single movement I made, in uncoiling the fonon meter's cord, on the end of which was a pressure sensitive band I wrapped around Luke's bicep. A minute later, a usually low number flashed on the monitor, like a blood pressure reading I took note of.

"Twenty-five percent lower than usual," I observed, adjusting my glasses. "Just as I suspected, the new seventh fonons that composure Luke's body are still dividing, creating new cells that form him as an embryo in mitosis. In other words, every aspect of him down to the molecular level is a new person, completely reborn. Except his memories were implanted by in by Lorelei, or his conscious you call the soul. It hasn't fully integrated within his new body, which explains his disorientation, or clear lack of memory of what just happened when we found him."

"Unbelievable, so that's Lorelei's power," Guy gasped, helping me remove the fonon meter hooked to Luke's arm. "I remember when I made my pilgrimage at Daath, the Order elevated Lorelei to a god and Yulia as its prophet. After all, it's the fonon of healing, perhaps even life."

"From a psychological standpoint, there's one of two reactions people experience when facing situations beyond their comprehension," I continued, sharing what I learned in academia from my youth. "They either respond out of fear, viewing it as a threat, or as something greater than them self. Which is what the Order has done, why I'm skeptical of religion, when the existence of Lorelei can be explained in purely scientific terms. Lorelei is an intelligent being, of which Luke is a part, also having power over time and space like hyper-resonance, so it makes sense Luke's fonons could reform after his…" I couldn't say _'death'_ or I'd startle Luke, but Guy understood.

"How many people cling strictly to rational beliefs?" Guy questioned, reflecting.

"Oh, me," I replied, half mockingly, with a devilish grin almost laughing. Turning back to Luke I smiled. "But you'll be okay, Luke, given rest."

* * *

**Luke's POV**

"It'll be okay Luke, I swear. I said I'd always be here for you, so here I am." Guy turned to me steadying my trembling shoulders, his hands tensed as he grabbed me, taking me in his embrace. A flood of emotion melted through in his grasp, as a mass of heat spreading over, enveloping me in Guy's warmth. Those were incredible feeling of love pulsing out from his very heart, where he always thought about me since the day I was born, a helpless infant trapped in a seven year old body, just returned to Batacul manor before I even opened my eyes, after my birth at Choral Castle.

I couldn't even say my name then. The sharp sunlight piercing my eyes and the screams of machines in elevators outside had scared me. Whenever I had closed my eyes to hide then, I still heard the laugh of my maker echoing throughout my mind. _Is this the very best replica we can make? He's inferior, a piece of trash compared to his original, but he'll have to do. It's a shame we can't discard him like that failed Ion replica at Zalaho Volcano._ Of course, I later learned that 'failed Ion replica' referred to Sync. That voice burned forever in my mind was Van, to whom I was a specimen, defective from the day of my birth. When you're told even before you're aware of your own existence, like an infant who has yet to be born, you swallow such poison with all your precious being.

I believed it. It became me, defined me like despair anchored inside, hanging over as do storm clouds darkening one's mood, clearer on some days but always there even if I wanted to believe it was gone. Because it lurked in a place I couldn't reach, down in the depths of my subconscious, the bottom of my soul. There, memories forgotten plagued me, pained me without my very knowing. The moment I discovered my existence as a replica, that lost wellspring bubbled up, flooding me with feelings of worthlessness, Jade's love and the affection of my friends reached me like distant arms just out of their grasp.

I was falling, trembling, plunging within even if they were there physically, existing in a darkness all of my own. It's a darkness so dark you forget the light exists in the love you feel from others. It swallowed me whole at the same time Jade's love reached out, the two seeming to vie for control. His affection lost to the pain I felt within, when I was about to sacrifice myself to save the people of St. Binah, but somehow Lorelei heard me, sending me back to my loved ones. That much I understood.

"What do you mean I _died_?" I questioned Guy, sheltered in his embrace. "I was just lucky Lorelei's power protected me. After all, I _am_ the Seventh Fonon," I added, with a hint of pride in my voice.

"Luke, I'm afraid it's not that simple," Jade interjected, with one arm folded over his chest, the other up by his chin, in that gesture he took contemplating. "It seems you did understand before when I said you died in a way, during the time your fonons reformed.

You should have died back there. At least an ordinary person would have." An unnatural cadence quivered in Jade's voice in a subtle manner others might not notice, but from the bond we formed, it caught my full attention.

I sensed by the emotion laced beneath he truly cared from his heart. He didn't express it openly like Guy or Natalia, embracing me, or hugging me in tears, but that change in tone spoke volumes, expressing his very heart, the feelings he didn't show masked behind his exterior. In that stride I took hugging him, I drew it out in warmth I also felt from Guy. The auras of each of them seemed to join together, wrapped around me in feeling.

A blush rose in my cheeks at the fact I embraced two guys. I knew such a thing wasn't masculine, looked down by men my age, but at this point I didn't care I was hurting. If I really did die as Jade said, was I lost in some darkness swallowing me whole, if my soul didn't exist after death?

"Why didn't I die? I don't understand," I cried, shaking my head, drawing back from Jade and Guy both. I collapsed on the bed I first awoke, crouched over in fear, quaking.

"As the aggregate sentience of the Seventh Fonon, Lorelei represents the next phase in the evolution of not only consciousness, but physical matter, providing fonons indeed are alive, or cognizant in their own way," came Jade's reply, which made no sense to me mentally. "Through you, Luke, Lorelei interacted with humans on this earth, having developed the same feelings you hold towards me. Because of that, Lorelei felt the need to continue living through you. Its experience of human emotions was so powerful it couldn't bear to let us grieve your loss. That's one reason it returned you, the other being the hope you represent, of liberating the world from the Score without humanity's destruction."

"No, that's not me, it should be Asch!" I cried again, burying my face in my arms crouched over coiling in fear.

Jade's crimson eyes narrowed, gazing down at me sharply as he loomed right over, pausing dead in his tracks over my bed. "You caused him much trouble as well as everyone else," he hissed, glaring down.

He revealed his true feelings a split second, striking fear deeper in me that'd I known. It was so unnatural it scared me, with Van's words rippling through. _Is this the very best replica we can make? He's inferior, a piece of trash compared to his original, but he'll have to do. It's a shame we can't discard him like that failed Ion replica at Zalaho Volcano. _The same venom of those words real as the time I first heard them, unconsciously heard just after my birth still in that fon machine in Coral Castle beside Asch, threatened to poison me again.

"Dammit," I growled, clenching my jaw, shutting my eyes. "Even if you think I'm an inferior replica, Van, I still have the right to live! I won't give up, be thrown away like Sync. I have friends who care, so get out of my head, and leave me the hell alone!"

* * *

**Jade's POV**

"Luke, look at me," I commanded, shaking him till his eyes opened, misted over in fear, his whole frame trembling even as he lay still in the bed.

The fact Luke had wanted to sacrifice himself had torn my very heart asunder, even if I masked it with a calm outer guise, appearing fully in control. Its times like this that made me say things like "having this many suicidal people around really gets on my nerves," or "I'm not good at dealing with obtuse children." I sensed already he battled the voice of Van inside, struggling to gain his inner freedom when he's never really known any other kind of existence. He serves to me a prime example of human beings fighting to reclaim who they are, when they've become so mired in beliefs that aren't their own, they thought once were.

"Calm down," I whispered, taking his quivering form in my arms, instinctively huddling closer. "It seems the very earliest memories you experienced around the time of your birth, but forgot are surfacing now in your mind. It'll take time to accept and fully understand them; just as it will your present actions back at St. Binah."

"You must understand after all you've been through, Luke, answers don't come quickly," Guy added wisely, standing beside Luke's bed as I held him. "People spend their entire lives searching, and sometimes then they don't find what they're looking for. I've been trying to forgive Duke Fabre for what he did to my family, even if it hurts, I won't let my hatred destroy me or I'd end up like Van blaming the Score."

"And I've continually searched for forgiveness from Nebilim for her death," I chimed in, a rare occurrence when I spoke my mind, admitting my internal wounds, but in times like this when it helped one I cared for in pain, then reluctantly I spoke. "Ask anyone we've traveled with and they'll tell you they face some pain."

"I…I've been selfish, thinking my problems are the only one that existed," Luke whimpered into my chest, hiding his face. Anger rose in his tone revealing all his frustration. "I really haven't changed at all, haven't I? I've been a self centered, spoiled brat the whole time."

"You may be mad I agree with you in some respects, Luke," I observed, lifting his chin to meet my face, as he lay supported on my arm. "But you live an existence as a replica none of us will fully understand, not even Ion as his original died long ago. But do you see Guy consumed by hate over his family's death? Do you see Tear giving up the battle she has to fighting against her brother? Or even Mieu continuing to blame himself after the Cheagle woods burned down? Its that lack of self will that's kept you from changing."

"Or confidence, because of your pain, but you can't let it hold you back, or you'll stay where you are forever. Learning to put my past behind me is the toughest thing I've done, still trying to do, by not letting it destroy me," Guy added, lowering himself on his knees, now meeting me eye level. His face darkened a somber shade I'd never seen, showing me just all the pain he held inside, crystallized in his eyes.

Luke saw that deep feeling in Guy coming through, finding for the first time a resolve of his own, understanding if he didn't face the pain that consumed him, he'd end up eaten up by it, just as Van was over Hod loosing his very family. In the depths Luke's watery eyes emerged an infer fire, saying in his mien, _if I let my past destroy me then I'm no different than Van who hurt me when he said those first words._

"You guys are absolutely right, facing yourself, but not letting it get you down is the maturity I lacked," Luke sniffled, glancing up at Guy, then looking straight at me, his face just inches away.

"Luke, if people were perfect they could face all those things without any pain at all. Do you think any such people really exist?" I questioned, stroking his cheek, then tucking his tear wetted bangs behind his ears. "If they did exist, you couldn't call them human because their hearts have died inside." I referred mostly to myself, but I could tell by the brightening of Luke's expression he understood perfectly well.

He said nothing that time simply letting my words sink in. Sitting up, he sighed, closing his eyes curling up against the wall. His chin sank down on his breast, as he seemed to fall into a kind of reflective state, where the mind processes thoughts in a dreamlike state, while retaining the memory upon waking. It's often in that space of inner silence our deepest answers come from within, if we want to say it's the answers inside our soul. I imagined perhaps Lorelei communed with Luke in his meditative expression, with half closed eyes turned down, gazing out, sometimes closing fully shut.

_You understand now why you must live, because I've started to experience life through you, fragment of my soul_, Lorelei's conscious echoed through.

I could tell when Lorelei spoke, as he slipped into a most peculiar reverie, not fully possessed as in classic cases of spirits entering, but daydreaming while fully awake.

"I didn't speak to you cause I was afraid of you," Luke answered back, in a low voice nodding off. "I was scared of you, of myself, since I didn't know who I was and nothing made sense. When you think you were created as a weapon to take human life, for the sake of your country, because the Score says it'll bring prosperity, how can you not think badly of yourself? I had no control over who I was going to be before I was born, or what my purpose was. Van had decided it. And now, trying to break away, figuring it out on my own is the hardest thing I've done."

"But Luke, you're not meant to do it alone. Do you understand?" I asked, waving my hand in front of his face. "We're here for you."

_Your friends summon you. Return forth born anew, my soul_, Lorelei finished communing, releasing Luke from the trance its presence induced.

"Guy? Jade?" Luke's eyes flickered open. "What happened? I was in a place where everything looked white, like the core might be, except I was here when I closed my eyes…"

"It must have been Lorelei speaking," Guy exclaimed, as he knelt over, stilling Luke's quivering body as he lay. "It seems you have a lapse in your memory whenever Lorelei speaks. This has been going on ever since we found you, so I don't think you should be left alone, Luke, till your back to usual yourself. But there's no need to worry, cause I told you I'd always be there, right?"

"Thanks, Guy." Luke smiled, sitting up and embracing him. "It seems ever since you've known me, all I've done is cause trouble. You're a real friend to put up with all that, you know that?"

"Of course I care, you mean the world to me. Without you, I'd have ended up just like Van," Guy admitted, his expression heavy with feeling. He glanced up at me, releasing Luke, turning Luke's attention to where I stood. "But there's someone else you should thank. He believed you were alive, when everyone else, even I might have lost all faith."

"Must you use a word I don't like? You're really trying to get on my nerves, aren't you Count Gailardia?" I teased, using his full name to draw out one of those looks.

"W…what?" Guy stammered, rising up.

"Well, at least I'm not the only one who falls for your tricks, Jade," Luke sighed, looking up with a half smile. "I suppose what Guy is trying to say is that I should thank you for coming to save me."

"To be thanked by you," I exclaimed, adjusting my glasses, though he sensed the real warmth beneath my outer guise. "Even at this point is still rather uncomfortable. I did it mainly for the sake of our mission, which is stopping Van and this war."

"Even after Luke comes back from the dead, you still can't be direct, Colonel," Guy groaned, shrugging. "But that's what makes Jade, Jade." Guy turned to Luke helping him to his feet. "Welcome back, Luke. We missed you. I couldn't imagine continuing our journey without you. Even if Asch is the original Luke, you're the own I've grown to love, cause you're my very best friend." His tenderness bathed Luke in pure affection that touched his very soul.

"And besides, it's not as enjoyable for me to poke fun at Asch as it is you," I added, winking at him through my glasses. "Guy, check if everyone's returned yet," I changed my tone addressing him. "And if they have, explain the entire situation regarding what happened with Luke, and we should proceed with the peace conference between Kimlasca and Malkuth in Yulia City."

"Me again?" Guy shook his head and gave in. "I always have to explain things. Just be sure to take care of Luke, okay?"

When Guy left us to find the others, the very air in the room seemed to condense into an intimate obliging element, drawing us closer together. We became the focal point of each other's worlds, our very existences in the gaze that joined our souls. Ever since I helped Luke explore the wonders of his body, in that orgasm and pleasures beyond, his trust in me kindled a newfound bond, one I never imagined possible with another human being long after Nebilim passed. I felt for my sake alone, Lorelei sent him back, if I reminded Lorelei that deeply of Dr. Cross, then Lorelei held hidden feelings as well. I guessed Lorelei's affection for Dr. Cross, intensified Luke's already passionate feelings.

This change in emotion was the first thing I noticed after discovering Luke in the Qliphoth. The time he spent between life and death, having merged completely into Lorelei's power, until his body was reformed, and Lorelei anchored his conscious back in his body must have affected him deeply, on more levels than I can imagine. I can see in the way he gazes at me, questioning himself, seeming to have lost his sense of identity when merging back into Lorelei. Now recently when it possessed him too, leaving him more vulnerable than before. I became Luke's refuge in this hour of need.

He sought solace in my heart, the one place he belonged where it didn't matter in his eyes if the world didn't accept him. I let him know that's where he could dwell in his hand I placed over my heart. He paused, growing quiet, hearing its steady thump murmur along beneath, the same beat a newborn infant feels after its born, laid on the breast of its mother. My heart became that mother's heart, friend's heart, lover's heart, whatever heart he needed, I'd give him because he saved it from dying, going numb after all those years from the ice that froze it over. The ice I speak of it's a metaphor for life's pain, those little things that happen, over and over, an endless stream of disappointment we loose ourselves in, until we forget we're lost. He became my hope, guiding me out, my Light of the Sacred Flame.

I sat down next to Luke on the bed, averting my gaze from him. "I almost lost you!" I cried, hiding my face behind my hands.

"Jade," Luke gasped. My sudden outburst startled him, causing his eyes to grow dewy with tears. "When I tried to take my own life, you were the one I hurt the most. The tears I cried as I plunged into the Qliphoth weren't my tears, but yours. Don't cry, Jade." Luke smiled sadly, shaking his head. "Tears aren't you, so let me be the one to cry them, since I've always been the one who's been weakest, even if I pretended I was strong."

"Do I look that strong to you?" I questioned, regaining my composure. "I just hide my feelings, hide it well so the world won't hurt me, thinking I'm the one who is really weak. In fact, I was around your age when I stopped feeling my feelings, Luke, and look at the person I've become. I didn't think it really mattered, so long as I stopped feeling and the pain went away. But you've showed me Luke, no matter how deep we burry our pain, it lingers until we face it. I accused you of not changing, by continuing to blame yourself, when I was the one in denial of just how much Nebilim's death really hurt me. I realized it when I thought I'd really loose you. You've become the most important person to me, who's helped me understand those things."

"And if I didn't have a place inside your heart, Jade, I wouldn't of found a place in this world that accepted me," Luke replied, shifting towards me, taking my hands from my face clasped between his hands. "For that I'll always love you, knowing I have worth as a human being. Ion said even if I'm a replica, if I'm loved by another, it makes me just as human."

"If not more, you have an honesty and purity of heart I've not seen in any other," I answered, wrapping my hands outside around his. "I am sure when you're older, Luke, you'll look back and wonder why you thought lesser of yourself."

"Don't you do the same over your guilt from creating fomicry?" Luke squeezed my hands back, weaving his fingers between mine, trembling. "It's why you've tried so hard to stop Van. I saw through my link with Asch when you visited the Replica Lab in Belkend, you were sad, so much regret in you, even if the others didn't notice it."

"Ah, yes, that was when I made the comment, when everyone wondered if I was like your father in a way, since I invented fomicry, and I remarked I'd rather have a son who was more smarter, more likable than you. I must admit now, I feel pained at having said that, now that I understand how you are, it's a wonder you've grown to like me." I spoke calmly, though agonized within, slipping my right hand out of his grasp, and wrapping it around his shoulder.

"Just shut up, Jade, I mean stop saying things like that," he retorted, holding my hand over his shoulder, facing me in our embrace. Emotion swam in his eyes, visible in his parting lips how they shook, and brows drawn up in fear. "Its true, Jade, it's a rather odd twist of fate, that I fell for you, liking you as I do, with you feeling the same, in the end when you might have lost me. We are so opposite, I don't know any two people alive more different than…us."

"And I can't think of two that have learned to overlook such differences," I replied softly, feeling a smile from my heart warm my placid face. "I'm sure if we continue to do that, Luke, no matter what happens, nothing can separate us." I slid both arms around him, feeling his chin sink into my shoulder, the heat of his neck through my uniform, as I held him closer supporting all his weight.

Luke curled up against me, nuzzling his face inside my neck, his lips brushing my skin above the collar of my undershirt, kissing deeply. One of my hands went up, while the other still supported his back, along the nape of his neck, tickling the hairs on its back, when my fingertips strayed up in his hair, creeping around the curve of his head, weaving my fingers through his hair. My hand wandering up caused his head to fall back, exposing the smooth column of his neck, as I ran my lips along, positioning him fully beneath me on our bed.

In the first bold move I made of this kind, I straddled Luke's hips, holding myself up with my arms right over, as he lay down quietly beneath me. I didn't wish to startle him, having assumed pose, watching to see what he'd do. His brows knit first in questioning, eyes widened in wonder, mouth gaped slightly open, then he sank back in ease seeing my tender gaze. I showered him in affection I poured forth, revealed only to Professor Nebilim as my mentor and Peony as my friend. Beneath my cold, disarming smile, I truly cared letting Luke know, in the caresses across his face, down the bridge of his nose, across his forehead, just over his eyelids, closing as they trembled under my touch, battling his long black lashes against my fingers.

I pulled off both my gloves, bare up to my elbow, so I could feel the soft texture of Luke's skin, the heat it kept from the sun having kissed it. One little touch in my hand on his face sent incredible feelings through, the bliss mounting between us was enough, in and of itself simply to hold, not needing more. As I lifted my hand up ever slowly, Luke's dark green eyes slid open, narrow cracks at first, once fully opened they revealed emerald pools, mirroring back my reflection. In my eyes, Luke saw his own reflection mirrored back in red, smiling through my glasses. Only my glasses and the molecules air between stopped us from drowning in each other's languishing eyes.

My heart beat faster, racing through my body, turning my veins to streams of liquid fire and my back a wall of tingles, all this from the effect his single gaze had. All the recollections of our previous conversation died away in the onslaught that possessed me. I feared I might hurt him with my rational mind gone, now almost a wanton beast of desire, from having suppressed myself during those lonesome years.

"Luke, I know how you feel, but we should stop," I whispered, jerking myself up off him, so my thighs barely touched his hips. "Neither of us is thinking straight. I nearly lost you in the Qliphoth, Lorelei took possession of you…so much has happened." I struggled in vain to persuade him, my aching arousal betrayed otherwise, felt by Luke in the recesses of my uniform when I was firmly on top.

When he shifted below me, I moaned feeling my arousal sink in between his thighs. He arched back into me, his own length hardening in his pants, growing constrained and painful, throbbing against mine. A low groan spilled from his throat, tightening, as did his hips wanting to push back. His hands drifted up stroking my face, drawing out a smile he returned, playing on his lips.

Luke's eyes shut half way, he took several deep breaths panting, his voice caught in his throat, murmuring, "After all you've done to save me, Jade, when I only caused you pain, I think this is the least I can do. So take me and do whatever you like."

My warm body and aching arousal on top of him, my breath tickling his nose drew out another moan from him, making me harder as well. I felt naked before him, blushing, protesting my body's response I tried to hide with a smile. "Do you even know what you're saying, dear?" I asked, running my hands down his arms he held up to me, brushing aside the red locks hiding Luke's face. "What if I ended up hurting you, Luke? Can you go further with me in lovemaking, not having any regrets? Sharing your body so openly often hurts people after the relationship ends, they often end up hurt."

"If its part of the risks adults take, and I want to be one, then I have to. _Please_, Jade." He uttered as if his very life depended on it, his emerald eyes desperately pleading.

He loved me so deeply it hurt, I felt unworthy. I wanted someone to reach inside me all those years, saving me from the loneliness, the hurt, making it go away, but when it actually did, in his words right now, I feared it at the same time I sought it. Why can't we just decide on one thing in our nature as humans, instead of cursing ourselves, hesitating, saying, if only I did this regretting the rest of our life? Then on our deathbed we wonder why we didn't do what our hearts desired, seizing that dream the only moment we could.

Luke reached back up, smiling gently, cupping my cheeks between his hot, moist palms closing in on my skin, heated there, searing where he touched. It wasn't a lustful reaction, but an emotional one tingled with desire. I ached physically in the restraints of my pants, the stiff uniform worn over, except my heart called out to him and I felt a special feeling flutter, unlike situations when only bodily desire is met. This was the difference between lust and love I wanted Luke to learn, so he wouldn't be hurt when most vulnerable.

"I want this, so stop holding back. I know you think of me as a child, but if you don't give me the chance, Jade, how can I grow?" Luke questioned, running his finger along my lower lip, groaning as my weight bore down over.

"You're right," I admitted, stroking his finger, taking his hand and weaving it between mine. "Though we don't have much time. Guy will be here soon to let us know what's happening, if our friends have returned with Asch from evacuating Engeve and lowering the continent, through the Sephiroth at Shurrey Hill. It'll have to be fast and…"

Shifting my weight further down Luke's thighs, my hands strayed to his waist, hooking inside his pants. No, I couldn't do this, taking advantage of his innocence any further than I had. It was wrong making me the attacker and him the victim simply from his lack of experience. I liked to tease him but to take advantage sexually was another matter, especially in his hour of need.

I shook my head. "No, Luke, I'm sorry I can't. It's not right. We really need time to ourselves. Besides, everyone is probably worried and they want to see you, especially Tear and Natalia. You know, they cried when they thought you died."

"Tear, Natalia," he repeated, loosing their names on his breath. His head fell on its side, revealing to me his profile, carved in delicate shadows from the dim interior lighting. "I should see everyone, Jade. But after that, I want to meet alone, just the two of us, okay?"

"We'll see," I echoed tentatively, rolling off him completely.

The moment our heated bodies broke apart, deep in the confines of our clothes our erections continued to ache, visible in the pained smiles each of us wore to hiding this embarrassing fact. But Luke couldn't control his urge like me, my nerves more resistant to bodily desire from years of acquired training. I could go without sleep for a few days as well, and endure physical torture most people might buckle under, it really wasn't fair to compare.

As I neared the door to the barrack, I sensed from behind the hurt mounting in Luke's countenance.

"Luke, I didn't mean it like that," I protested. "I only meant now wasn't the best time, considering our friends might have returned and…"

He dashed out ahead feeling hurt before I could say another word.

TBC


End file.
